Hospital staff have hailed a ‘true hero’ for helping them get to work during heavy snowfall.
Karl Clough, who drives an ex-military Land Rover, helped hospital staff get to work across West Yorkshire, including Huddersfield’s Jenny Wilkinson who works at Dewsbury and District Hospital as a ward sister.
Karl also helped tow an emergency ambulance that had got stuck in the snow between Dewsbury and Brighouse.
Jenny said: “He came for me in Dalton then we went to Brighouse to collect my colleague. It was on the way for him that we helped the ambulance.
“He then took other workers home who lived in Brighouse who had been on the night shift and were stuck at work.”
Jenny shared a photo online of Karl and his Land Rover and said he was “definitely a true hero” as he had gone “above and beyond” to get hospital staff to work.
HGV driver Karl, 58, from Ossett, near Wakefield, a former Territorial Army volunteer, said he had put a post on Facebook offering to ferry hospital workers about for free when the snow hit West Yorkshire on Sunday.
The dad-of-one played down what he had done. He told Yorkshire Live: “I am not a hero – the heroes are the hospital staff. I am not the hero in this story.”
Karl said he had decided to offer to help because he was at home and ‘between jobs’ and had experience of driving in poor conditions as he had worked as a HGV driver in Scandinavia.
He added: “I have owned ex-military vehicles for many years and have always offered assistance when the weather stops public transport from running, or is so bad as to prevent NHS staff from getting into or from work.
“I’m ex-Forces and civil services so I know the value these people have. It would be selfish of me to sit at home, having the kit and knowing how to get about in said conditions.”
He joked that, in comparison with Scandinavia, the conditions weren’t too bad and might be considered as ‘slight snow flurry’.
“I don’t want any remuneration for what I do. After all is said and done, when I have needed the NHS and the nurses, they’ve always been there for me.”
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