November 2021

During our Maserati Levante Trofeo tour to visit the Great North Air Ambulance Service helicopter rescue we stayed at the lovely Derwent Manor Boutique Hotel between Newcastle and Durham at the edge of the North Pennines in North Yorkshire.

Originally built as a country residence for the three-time Lord Mayor of Manchester, Alderman John Grave. Derwent offers 56 elegant double bedrooms including five suites with stunning views over the countryside and four boutique cottages

To get to know a car well you should take it on an adventure. So we drove the Maserati Levante Trofeo up to visit the Great North Air Ambulance Service helicopter rescue for a two-day extravaganza of training, tactical emergency simulation and marauding terrorist attack.

Great North Air Ambulance Service save lives.

In two words, Critical Care. When minutes count and a life is on the line. A paramedic needs to get to the scene fast and be trained to an exceptional level to preserve life until the patient gets to a hospital.

We rendezvoused at Northumbria Police Operational and Tactical Training Centre. This is a state of the art firing range used by many police forces and the military. We were being trained in ballistics. Or to put it another way, the damage different types of bullets do to a human body.