Nick Foster: founder member of the East Midlands Immediate Care Scheme

Nick Foster, who co-founded emergency response group EMICS and was the first doctor on the scene of the Kegworth air disaster in 1989, has died at the age of 65.

Foster was born in Leicester in 1955, an only child and raised in Hong Kong where his father, John, was a Church of England dean. Foster’s parents met during the war. His mother, Margaret, was in the Wrens, and John in the Leicester Yeomanry, and they married in 1943. In his youth, Foster adored animals and according to his family was always rescuing “mutts” from the streets in Hong Kong, where he attended a local school. As a child, he underwent many operations—he was born deaf in his left ear. He returned to England as a boarder at Loughborough Grammar School. He was told he was not bright enough to be a doctor but in time became an exceptional medical practitioner.

Foster initially studied dentistry at Sheffield University and qualified as a dentist in 1978. Afterwards he read medicine. He worked briefly in maxillofacial reconstructive surgery and anaesthetics before opting for general practice. He trained …