Matthew Heath, also known as ‘Matty’, from Marsk, was driving along the B1269 road, near Dunsdale, in 2008 when his motorbike was involved in a collision with a car.

Our critical care team flew to the scene of the incident, but despite their best efforts, Matty, who was only 18 years old, died from his injuries.

Ever since, his brother Tom Heath, of Redcar, has honoured Matty’s memory by organising several fundraising events to support the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) including football tournaments, music events, horse race nights, family fun days, raffles and Boxing Day Dips.Last year Tom pledged to continue supporting GNAAS through his business Opulent Odds, which is a North East based competition company that he co-owns with Kiefer Bradbury.

The competitions website offers the chance to win prizes such as luxury watches, holidays and even thousands of pounds in cash, and will be donating a portion of their profits to GNAAS.

Tom said: “Through Opulent Odds, we want to keep Matty’s memory alive while supporting a charity that works tirelessly to save lives across our region. GNAAS do truly life-saving work, and with your support, we hope to raise even more to help prevent other families from going through the pain of losing a loved one.”

In August 2025, the business presented a cheque for more than £3,000, which included £1,500 from a charity cash competition giveaway ran by Ben Blackburn, owner of AAA Roofing, and also one of our Corporate Partners.The two companies teamed up again at the end of the last year for another charity cash competition and Opulent Odds donated £6,440 which was raised from ticket sales.

They’ve also attended our charity ball in the North East and this year Tom and his family and friends walked 26 miles from Whitby to Redcar in one day and raised £2,730.

This takes the overall total raised in memory of Matty to more than £77,000, and the business Opulent Odds is now a Corporate Partner of our charity.