Saving Lives with First Responders
Community First Responders are people who provide voluntary emergency response in rural areas. Cutting mortality rates is the project’s primary objective and in order to achieve this, the group of volunteers are equipped with a defibrillator which delivers an electrical shock to the heart to get it beating again in case of heart attack.
It is a much needed service as the UK bears one of the highest levels of cardiac conditions in Europe, which is what inspired the launch of the Community First Responder scheme.
About 27,000 people a year suffer a heart attack, 70% of which do not occur in hospital and what’s more, only 10% of sufferers survive. Most of the schemes are in rural areas, where ambulance response times would be slower. Because the volunteers live in the area, they can be on the scene in minutes.
Sarah-Jayne Parsons, community defibrillation officer for Northamptonshire, said, “We are taking defibrillators into the community to provide rapid access for heart problems. We are trying to set up schemes in rural areas where it is not always possible to hit the Government’s eight-minute response target with an ambulance. A defibrillator will shock the heart into what we hope is a normal sinus rhythm.
“Generally our volunteers get to a patient within two to three minutes because they live in the community. If you can get a defibrillator there within four to five minutes you can increase the chances of survival by 85 per cent. After that it decreases by 10 per cent every minute. Quite a few lives have been saved by the first responder scheme.”
There are five established schemes in Northamptonshire and there are plans to set up another for the area covering Barton Seagrave and Cranford. Some schemes are 24-hour operations, like Oundle, and others are mainly evenings and weekends.
Volunteers must do 20 hours of initial training and do a refresher course every six months to update their skills. An ambulance is always dispatched at the same time as the first responder, and paramedics will take over the situation when they arrive on scene.
Teresa Black joined the team of volunteers five years ago. She said, “I am a trained first aider and I wanted to join so I could get some first-hand experience. I am the manager of the swimming pool at Oundle School and we are fortunate because the school has let four of us become volunteers.”
Teresa organised a 24-hour sponsored swim in 2007 to raise funds for the organisation.
“When I first started it was nerve-racking. The phone would go and you would find your hands were shaking. But you get used to it.”
Heidi Kummerehl a founding member of the Oundle team, said, “I have had to do CPR twice, once on my grandma and once on a neighbour. The ambulance took 25 minutes to get to us, so I know how desperately we needed a First Responder scheme.”
The Oundle First Responder scheme has been running for seven years and is a 24-hour service. The group must raise £2,000 to cover the cost of the equipment, though they can get a 50 per cent grant from the British Heart Foundation.
