AN AMBITIOUS engineer is to travel to Africa in the new year and build a life-saving laboratory.

Dad-of-two David Connolly, 28, will spend a week in Ghana next month putting a laboratory and mortuary in place for free.

Mr Connolly, of Pinfold Avenue, Sherburn-in-Elmet, volunteered his services to Dr Mark Egan, the founder of Labafrica, when he met the Home Office pathologist as they dismantled the old laboratory in Gateshead's Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

The 28-year-old volunteered his services when Dr Egan revealed he had purchased the equipment and was transporting it to Ghana.

Mr Connolly said: "I was really excited about the trip and when I asked him what he got out of it he said he told me it was the satisfaction of saving lives.

"I put my services forward because it's going to be an experience that doesn't come around too often.

"I have a chance to meet some good people and save some lives at the same time as having the experience of a lifetime.

"I want to challenge myself in a completely different culture and environment."

Dr Egan works throughout North Yorkshire and the North East, and set up the not for profit labafrica in 2010.

It now boasts one laboratory in Kenya and another in Ghana to study killer diseases.

The new equipment will protect the laboratory staff from contracting the diseases they analyse.

Dr Egan added: "I simply would not be able to do this without him.

"He is going to be spending a week there in really bad conditions and working from dawn until dusk.

"The amount of experts we have in Ghana is not enough and this is a specialist job.

"This equipment will ensure it's just like working in the UK."