A number of medical staff based at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB) have received national recognition for their roles in treating seriously injured patients.

They were presented with their prizes at the 2014 Ambulance Service Institute Awards, held at the House of Lords in London on 8 May.

Dr David Balthazor, a consultant in intensive care medicine at QEHB, was part of a paramedic helicopter based team which received the Air Ambulance Award after treating a farm worker trapped under a machine.

And Alex Laston and Louise Ormsby, a Patient Transport Service crew working from QEHB, won the national Patient Transport Award following a road accident in which a female pedestrian was severely injured.

There was a further award of an Honorary Fellowship which was presented to Professor Sir Keith Porter, Clinical Service Lead for Trauma and the country’s first Professor of Clinical Traumatology.

The awards were presented by leading surgeon Lord Ian McColl, who also served as Shadow Minister of Health for more than 10 years up to 2010.

He said: "It has been a great joy for me to be here and to hear all the amazing things that you have done. We are just so grateful that you risk your lives to do all these wonderful things."

Dr Balthazor was part of a Midlands Air Ambulance team which attended an incident in Staffordshire involving a 33- year-old man trapped in a 3ft by 3ft maintenance tunnel beneath a large potato sorting machine.

The patient’s arm had been partly torn off by the machine’s rollers and he was bleeding quite profusely, but members of the ambulance team took turns in the tunnel to treat and reassure him before he was released by firefighters.

During his two-and-a-half hour ordeal, the trapped patient was given oxygen, morphine, intravenous fluids and blood, with the award citation acknowledging that this was a "difficult and dangerous job demonstrating excellent team work and inter-service.working".

Dr Balthazor, who has been flying with the air ambulance on a part-time basis for seven years, said: "I had to crawl in and out of the tunnel to provide treatment, set up a drip, and also coordinate all of the care as the doctor on site.

"At one point we had to be soaked in water to prevent our clothes catching fire while the firefighters were cutting through the rollers to free the patient."

Alex Laston and Louise Ormsby of West Midlands Ambulance Service came across a serious road accident in Moseley involving a female pedestrian and a large goods vehicle.

Their citation said: "Despite the horrific nature of the patient’s injuries, the crew remained calm and professional in rendering aid until a front-line ambulance arrived."

They then continued to provide "first-class assistance" to the front-line crew who asked for their thanks and congratulations to be passed on.

Prof Porter, who leads a team of 10 military and civilian trauma consultants treating seriously injured patients at QEHB, was said to have been at the forefront of developing world-class treatment for injured military servicemen and women for more than a decade.