Date published: 4 December 2020

Louth Ambulance Station in Lincolnshire received a lovely letter from two brothers from Norfolk -  4-year-old Tommy and his younger brother Toby, aged 3.

In the letter addressed to our ambulance station, Tommy and Toby explain that their mother is an administrator for a Facebook Group called Hit the Ambulance Gamers, which was set up in February 2020 and already has 74,000 members on its private page.

“Hitting” an ambulance is a popular term used by people who leave nice things on the ambulance for the crew to enjoy upon their return and can range from a lovely uplifting note to a bar of chocolate.

Richard Hunter, Ambulance Operations Manager for the Lincolnshire Division of EMAS said: “It is always lovely to hear about acts of kindness from members of the public, who want to appreciate the hard work of our ambulance crews.”

Toby developed his love of ambulances from very early in his life due to needing five ambulance journeys in the space of two months back in 2018 because he was suffering from seizures.

Toby in hospital.jpeg

His mother Lisa said: “He was later diagnosed with epilepsy and he also has a chromosome deletion, asthma and a range of allergies so as you can imagine, we are regular visitors to the hospital.”

Toby is the honouree CEO of the junior hitters’ division of the group. Last month Toby and Tommy hit over 100 ambulance stations across the country, with the help of his brother Tommy and other siblings including Jamie aged 10, Adam aged 12, Tia aged 15 and Alex aged 17.

Lisa said: “As a family we have been participating in random acts of kindness towards emergency services for a good few years so when we came across Hit the Ambulance Gamers page on Facebook it was right up our street.

“We haven’t been able to hit as many ambulances as we would have liked due to COVID-19 so we decided to hit stations via Amazon, sending chocolates, sweets and biscuits directly to the stations and sending the letters via post.”

Toby family.jpeg
Toby and Tommy in the front row with their brother Jamie, aged 10, sat to the left. From the back, left to right, we have 17-year-old Alex, 15-year-old Tia, and 12-year-old Adam.

The Hit the Ambulance group was set up by Tracy Carter who lives in Leicester and says that the mission of the group is to spread the love for our emergency services workers.

She said: “I set up the group because I kept hearing about ambulance crews returning to nasty notes and hearing about crews being assaulted while trying to help people.

“What we do is try to counteract the negatives by doing nice random things that make emergency workers days a little bit brighter.

“It’s amazing how quickly the group grew, and I feel so lucky to have all these kind, thoughtful and funny people trying to make things better with simple gestures for our emergency services right across the country.”

The Hit the Ambulance group was set up by Tracy Carter who lives in Leicester and says that the mission of the group is to spread the love for our emergency services workers.

She said: “I set up the group because I kept hearing about ambulance crews returning to nasty notes and hearing about crews being assaulted while trying to help people.

“What we do is try to counteract the negatives by doing nice random things that make emergency workers days a little bit brighter.

“It’s amazing how quickly the group grew, and I feel so lucky to have all these kind, thoughtful and funny people trying to make things better with simple gestures for our emergency services right across the country.”