Mansfield Skoda dealership '˜overwhelmed' after offering to repair London ambulance damaged by football fan free of charge

Matt Boultby, service manager at the Skoda branch, sent a tweet to London ambulance at around 7pm yesterday (July 9), to say that they were saddened to see the damage to the Skoda ambulance, and that the branch would love to help by sending a new wing mirror, windscreen and bonnet free of charge.

Although London ambulance have not yet taken Skoda up on their offer, they are in contact and have offered to bring the vehicle to the garage and carry out the work needed to get the vehicle back on the road.

Mr Boultby said: “The response we received was overwhelming and not expected. We didn’t do this for publicity and we didn’t expect this. We work closely with East Midlands Ambulance Service and maintain their fleet of vehicles, so it seemed like the natural thing to do.”

“It was shocking, you don’t expect to see someone climbing on a vehicle like that.”

“We sense the pressure and anxiety of a much-needed ambulance being off the road when we maintain EMAS vehicles, and the car that got damaged will be off the road. People don’t think when they do these things, it took two seconds to damage the car and possibly three days to fix.”

“When we see things like this in the news we feel powerless, and it’s important that we as a company could do something.”

“We appreciate how busy the ambulances are and they’re full of life-saving equipment. There’s pressure to get ambulances back on the road as we’re conscious that someone’s out there that needs one.”

Chris Lineker, marketing manager said: “It’s nice that people all over the country have replied to the tweet, it seems to have touched a lot of people.”

Jon Atherton, director said that the staff are all football fans and publicity wasn’t the goal, they just wanted to do their bit for the NHS.