You Meg Us So Proud!

Content warning: This story includes references to baby loss and bereavement.

A couple who lost their baby girl in childbirth have told how volunteering for a local charity is helping to keep her memory alive.

Maria and Stephen Cook’s daughter Megan was stillborn at 33 weeks after she contracted a bacterial infection in the womb. The pair were overcome with grief but somehow found a way to channel their heartache into helping others.

Now they both volunteer for a charity which delivers life-saving blood and medical supplies - and in a poignant tribute, the motorbike Stephen uses is named after Megan, meaning his precious girl is with him on every single call out.

The charity, SERV Suffolk & Cambridgeshire – also affectionately known as The Bloodrunners – has been helping people in the area since 2011 and has become a huge part of Maria and Stephen’s life.

Maria, who also has a son and a daughter, said: “I just burst into tears when we first saw the bike and Megan’s name on the pannier. The charity wanted it to be a secret. It blew our minds, to be honest, because the only time we ever saw her name was on her headstone.

“It’s a name we never get to write down. When you have other children, you write their names on Christmas cards, on birthday cards, things like that but we didn’t get to do that with Megan. I tell people I have three children because I do. So, seeing the bike was special.”

Maria was left critically ill following Megan’s birth in October 1998, having contracted group B streptococcus and several blood transfusions were needed to save her life. It means she’s not allowed to give blood so volunteering with The Bloodrunners is, she says, her way of giving back. She organises and supports fundraising events and is now a trustee.

Maria said: “It’s great to be a part of it. It’s the passion of knowing that every time that phone rings, you're doing something for somebody else. It could be a baby, it could be someone elderly. So many people have a story of how we have helped.”

Maria and Stephen are among around 160 volunteers who keep The Bloodrunners on the road. Last year, the charity answered more than 2,000 requests for help, covering a staggering 157,500 miles in the process.

Stephen is one of their longest-serving volunteers, having been involved since 2011 – just a few months after The Bloodrunners was first set up. Putting Megan’s name on the charity’s Yamaha FJR 1300 was the team’s very personal way of thanking him.

SERVSC – or to give it its full name, Service by Emergency Response Volunteers in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire - provides a free, essential service to NHS hospitals, air ambulance services, hospices, pharmacies, milk banks, and vulnerable patients. It transports urgently needed blood, blood products, patient samples, medicine, and medical equipment 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Cindy Dickerson, Chair of SERVSC, says for many, the service can mean the difference between life and death. She recalls a surgeon on an emergency call-out with the local air ambulance where a motorcyclist had crashed and was stuck in a tree.

Cindy said: “We deliver blood to the air ambulance service daily and they were able to do a blood transfusion there and then while the patient was still in the tree. The surgeon told us afterwards that without the transfusion he wouldn’t have made it to the hospital. They can do their job because of what we do.”

Another key part of the charity’s work helps support mothers and premature babies in local hospitals and maternity units and, when requested, further afield.

Cindy said: “Not everyone is aware of the baby milk banks. We had a mother who had given birth to twins. She was very sick following their delivery and was in one hospital while her babies were in another – and we were delivering the milk that she was expressing, sometimes twice a day, for two weeks.

“Another time, we became involved in the case of a baby boy that was very poorly when he was born. He was about 15 weeks early and needed surgery. We took milk to Great Ormond Street Hospital because the surgeon wouldn’t operate without mother’s milk – and we supplied it, not just for the operation but afterwards too. He’s seven years old now. His parents keep in touch and they fundraise for us. They say he got the best care because of what we did. It touches the heart.”

Demand for The Bloodrunners’ services has increased year on year – growing exponentially following the Covid pandemic.

Cindy explained: “Before Covid, we just covered night-times and weekends, and bank holidays. We were very much out-of-hours. When Covid hit, our reaction was ‘The NHS needs our help, what can we do?’ And straight away they were coming back to us asking: Can you help us during the day? So, the whole charity changed beyond recognition. We became 24/7.

“We doubled the number of volunteers in the first year after Covid. Previously we had about 60 to 70 volunteers and now we are sitting at about 160. We are busier now during the day than we are at night.

“It’s opened up the opportunities for the NHS to ring us and ask if we can help. And of course, it also means our costs are higher so that’s where fundraising now becomes really important.”

While the NHS carries out its own deliveries locally twice a day, The Bloodrunners help save vital money for the health service by picking up the additional need for free.

“We provide that something extra,” said Cindy. “If a hospital is running low on a certain type of blood or needs platelets, or new plasma for an operation we would be the extra resource. If we didn’t do it, they would use taxis or couriers. It’s a huge amount of money saved every time we go out.”

The Bloodrunners rely solely on donations to keep these lifesaving services going and players of People’s Postcode Lottery have raised £30,000 to date for the charity.

Cindy said: "It's overwhelming to receive such fantastic support. It means a lot for our volunteers' efforts to be recognised and it will also help us with essential training, equipment, and running costs. It has given us an invaluable opportunity to expand our operations and replace one of our vehicles so we can continue to support NHS organisations, emergency air ambulances, new mothers, vulnerable babies, and cancer patients in our region.”

Such has been the organisation’s impact, it was honoured with the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in 2019 - the equivalent of an MBE - after being nominated by staff from one of the pathology wards it supports.

For Maria and Stephen, The Bloodrunners have had a very personal impact. Volunteering has helped them through the darkest of times and they say enabled them to be a part of something they know is making a difference in their local community. And supporting the charity has very much become a family affair. Their daughter Stephanie, son Matthew, and their grandchildren have all volunteered over the years, helping in the control room, or out on calls, or at fundraising events.

Maria said: “It can be hard work at times but it’s so rewarding. We had a mum come up to us at an event, whose daughter was very seriously ill when she was born and had emergency surgery.

“She needed 26 pints of blood. Her mum said if it wasn't for the likes of The Bloodrunners taking blood to the hospital, her daughter may not have survived. We met them both recently and she’s grown up to be a beautiful, funny little girl. When you hear stories like that, you know it’s making a difference.”