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In 2015, Sergio and Emma Petrucci faced every parent’s worst nightmare – their little girl Luna, faced life-saving heart surgery just before her second birthday. Luna, now nine, was diagnosed with two holes in her heart during a routine check-up. Her condition originally described as a “ticking time bomb” by cardiologists made the decision she would need surgery just days before she turned two. Thanks to the amazing work done by Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital, they not only were able to save Luna, but enabled her to live a normal life.
This led to the founding of the Red Sky Foundation (so named after Sergio had seen a red sky outside the hospital while waiting for Luna’s operation to be performed), which is dedicated to raising funds to purchase medical equipment, provide facilities and aftercare at the Children’s Heart Unit at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital, Sunderland Royal Hospital and the James Cook Hospital, Teesside. Raising well over £700,000 since its inception, the charity, has purchased defibrillators for local communities and sports clubs, and more equipment, like the FDR Nano from Fujifilm.
Fujifilm’s relationship with the Red Sky Foundation is in its infancy but has quickly blossomed. We’re delighted to have gotten to know Sergio and Emma Petrucci through our local account manager, John Casson (Senior Account Manager, Northern England). We look forward to continuing to be working together for better healthcare for everyone, and ultimately, saving lives.
Sergio, Emma and Red Sky Foundation started fundraising for the FDR Nano to enable quicker and better care for babies in the Sunderland Royal’s neo-natal unit. The FDR Nano is ideal for neo-natal patients as it is quieter, lighter and smaller than traditional mobile x-ray machines. The Sunderland Royal Hospital has become one of the first in Europe to utilise the technology of the FDR D-EVO III C24 to help improve image quality for the hospital’s smallest and youngest patients.
In addition to the support of Fujifilm, the fundraising and donation of this £70,000 device has been backed by South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust’s own charity, STS Charity. Which is designed to make improvements for both patients and staff. The FDR Nano was purchased following a discussion with Dr Majd Abu-Harb, who originally diagnosed Luna Petrucci’s heart condition.
Sergio and Emma remained in contact with Dr Abu-Harb, to understand how they could best support with the Red Sky Foundation. Sergio explained, “he [Dr Abu-Harb] said he would love one of these [FDR Nano] to help the babies in the unit, and so we said yes, we asked how much it would be and then got to work on the fundraising!”
“I’m immensely proud we’ve been able to do this for the unit, it’s something we’ve wanted to see happen and we hope it helps other children from South Tyneside and Sunderland like Luna, so they can get the treatment they need.”
Since fundraising for the FDR Nano, Red Sky, just like Fujifilm, never stop. We’ve worked with RedSky on a handful of events such as their involvement in The Great North Run, the yearly white party, and their hugely popular RedSky charity golf day. RedSky continue to do amazing work, managing to raise nearly £30,000 at the Great North Run, over £50,000 at the White Party and over £26,000 at the golf day. We are delighted to be involved and are thankful to Sergio and the rest of the team at Red Sky Foundation for the incredible work they do – and we know that the money raised will continue to contribute to saving lives just like Luna.
Photo credits, left to right:
Dr Imran Ahmed (Consultant Neonatologist, Sunderland Royal Hospital)
Sergio Petrucci (Founder, Red Sky Foundation)
John Casson (Senior Account Manager, Fujifilm)
Dee Sixsmith (Radiology Operational Manager, Sunderland Royal Hospital)