IT didn't take long for Lorraine Eaton to decide how to repay the medics who, she's convinced, were crucial to saving daughter Sophie's life after a car accident in Droitwich.

While the family was stuck in traffic for an hour trying to reach Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the County Air Ambulance delivered the seriously-injured 10-year-old there in seven minutes.

Before Sophie was released after treatment for a fractured skull, Mrs Eaton had discovered that the County Air Ambulance service was kept going by voluntary donations - and she vowed to swell its coffers.

We have a hunch that she's far from alone in assuming that such a vital, professionally-run outfit is run on public funds.

When the service's second helicopter took to the air in 1997, it cost around £840,000 a year to keep each machine flying.

We wonder how many lives have been saved by that second aircraft which, otherwise, might have been lost or left in some kind of ruin.

What Mrs Eaton's doing now isn't the first such promise of help in return for saving a life, of course, and we trust it won't be the last.

As far back as 1993, Worcester husband Bob Hayward raised £1,000 to keep the ambulance in service after wife Maureen 'died' at work.

We said then that it was a commendable effort, but a sad reflection on the way the Government was happy to regard its responsibility in such a vital area of acute healthcare.

Nothing has really happened to change that view. The County Air Ambulance might live on a wing, but it can do without surviving on a prayer.