Staff at Thames Valley and Chiltern Air Ambulance are celebrating after being given £300,000 from the NHS, which will help prevent the service from being grounded.
The air ambulance attends 999 calls in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, and has helped an average of two people every day since it was launched in June 1999.
But the end of a £500,000 sponsorship deal with the AA next month has threatened the service, which costs £1m a year to keep airborne.
Staff are delighted about the NHS money, which includes extra funding to crew the Agusta 109E Power helicopter.
The air ambulance is based near Maidenhead and was in action yesterday, to transport injured people from the M40 crash to the John Radcliffe Hospital, in Headington, Oxford.
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