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Hospital doctors have joined forces with paramedics to treat road crash victims on the spot.
Since its launch a month ago the North Wales Emergency Doctor Service (NWEDS) has given vital aid to patients from seriously ill children through to injured pensioners, alongside North Wales Ambulance Service crews.
The four doctors, who are scrambled to major incidents in between their existing hospital jobs, are now hoping to recruit others to expand the team.
Members of the team are scrambled by mobile phone calls from Ambulance control.
They have guaranteed cover for their hospital roles.
Doctors have to use their own cars to get to the scene.
The team is Mike Bloom, a Wrexham Maelor doctor, along with Suman Mitra, consultant anaesthetist in Bangor, Aruni Sen, emergency medicine consultant in Wrexham, and Ben Warrick, anaesthetic registrar in Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, Bodelwyddan. Dr Bloom said, "I've been out to a number of different traffic accidents on the A55. I've been out to an eight-year-old boy who was fitting and the outcomes have been good."
Dr Bloom was also called to help treat victims of a crash on the A55 near Bodelwyddan, where a car had careered off the road and overturned trapping two women, one elderly, at the bottom of an embankment. Dr Bloom helped ease their pain while firefighters cut them free.
Dr Bloom said: "I discovered one lady had an intolerance to opiates and because I was there we were able to use alternative analgesia.
"I made a clinical decision on the scene that the fire service, while being incredibly professional and skilled at what they do, may have felt difficult."
The project has been registered as a charity and that is its sole funding - all the doctors have had to stump up pounds 15,000 on equipment out of their own pocket to get the project started.
Ben Warrick said: "I was amazed that this service didn't exist. There are very good equivalents elsewhere.
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