Welshpool group training up lifesavers in the community
Welshpool Impact has teamed up with Effie Cadwallader, presently with Welsh Ambulance Service Community First Responder’s (CFR’s), to hold sessions for the public as one of their community projects.
Community Responders are volunteers with advanced first aid and life-saving training who are now an integral part of the Ambulance service.
These volunteers are even more important now with ambulance stations closing and the lengthening waits for ambulances.
Because they live in our community, they can be dispatched by ambulance control to incidents and be at the scene before paramedics and ambulances arrive to deliver emergency care.
This community project is being organised by Mike Lade, Rotaract Impact member, who is himself a retired CFR with 15 years of experience with West Midlands Ambulance Service and, before that, South East Coast Ambulance Service
He said said: “In a Cardiac Arrest, early recognition, the call for help, early CPR and early defibrillation are the first four links in the Chain of Survival. When the heart stops, the brain starts to die at the rate of about 10% per minute due to the lack of oxygen – that damage is not repairable.
“When the person’s heart stopped, they had residual oxygen in their blood stream. By starting good early CPR, the heart is made to manually pump that oxygenated blood around the brain to extend the time before permanent damage occurs and until a paramedic arrives.
“That is why it’s so important that people are able to do good CPR and know how to apply a defibrillator as soon as possible after the person has collapsed from a cardiac arrest. These defibrillators are available now in boxes on walls around Welshpool and in the surrounding villages and they are there for use for such emergencies.”
No charge is made for the sessions, but there will be a donations bucket for voluntary donations that help maintain the training dummies, training defibrillators and replace consumables.
Welshpool Impact invites anyone who wishes to learn these skills and more information and details on these two-hour sessions will follow soon, but numbers will be limited to 18 per session.
Welshpool Impact said they are grateful to The Royal Oak Hotel for the use of their facilities to deliver the life-saving sessions.
The new Impact Club welcomes anyone who wishes to drop in to a meeting to learn more about Rotaract. They meet on the second and fourth Wednesday in the month at The Old Bakehouse, from 7pm, but they regularly have social evenings at other venues.
More information is available on Facebook @welshpoolimpact, contacting Mike on 07803 038858, via email at welshpoolimpact@gmail.com or through the web site www.welshpoolimpact.com.
PICTURE: Effie Cadwallader and Mike Lade with some of the training equipment
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