A WREXHAM industrial merchant has been thanked after buying a new vehicle for blood bike volunteers.

Higgi Ltd, a family run company based on Blackwood Business Park on Wrexham Industrial Estate, donated the Yamaha FJR 1300 – named Vampire 8 – to Merseyside and Cheshire Blood Bikes.

The Blood Bike’s aim is to relieve sickness and protect health by providing emergency transport of urgently needed blood, donor breast milk, drugs, human tissues and other medical requirements between hospitals, hospices and blood transfusion units primarily but not exclusively in the North West.

April Davies, managing director of Higgi Ltd said: “We knew nothing of the Blood Bike service until our Widnes based friend and warehouse owner David, of David Lythgoe Ltd, contacted us looking for sponsorship and support for this vital and entirely voluntary service.

“Once we fully understood the story behind the time, money and lives saved by bikes it was a privilege to be able to buy ‘Vampire 8’. It brought a smile to all our faces when she pulled in front of our office.”

The bike was donated to the organisation two weeks ago and it has already been used for 10 runs, including samples from Clatterbridge to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, delivery of controlled drugs from the on-site pharmacy at Marie Curie to Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital at Broadgreen and two runs to Aintree Hospital Tower Block to Liverpool Royal University Hospital for the delivery of samples for urgent testing.

Simon Dennett, a trustee and rider for Merseyside and Cheshire Blood Bikes, said: “It is fantastic and it raises our profile. It is a fantastic piece of kit and it is so reliable.

“It is custom made to do the job. Because we can get two or three boxes on the bike we can take more at a time.

“It would have taken us two or three years to raise the money to buy a bike like this, it is a dream come true.”

Stuart Thompson, senior controller at Merseyside and Cheshire Blood Bikes, added: “On behalf of Merseyside and Cheshire Blood bikes I would like to say a huge thank you to Higgi Ltd for your amazing donation, and for the lives you have already saved in just the first two weeks of service.”