A PENSIONER was air-lifted to hospital yesterday after he collapsed at his home in Sea Palling.Paramedics were called after the 79-year-old man, who had a rapid heart beat and low blood pressure, fell ill at about 11.

A PENSIONER was air-lifted to hospital yesterday after he collapsed at his home in Sea Palling.

Paramedics were called after the 79-year-old man, who had a rapid heart beat and low blood pressure, fell ill at about 11.30am.

The ambulance decided to call in the air ambulance to help get the patient to hospital as quickly as possible.

Martin Bunn, a paramedic with the air ambulance, said: “He was quite poorly. Because of the rural location, you were looking at a good 45-minute journey by land.”

It took the helicopter, Anglia One, about six minutes to get the patient to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, where he had previously received treatment for a heart condition.

Mr Bunn said the pensioner was comfortable when the paramedics left him at the hospital's coronary care unit.