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How you could help save lives as a first responder
COMMUNITY First Responders are volunteers who provide an emergency response in rural areas. Features editor Joni Ager finds out how they are helping to save lives.
About 27,000 people a year suffer a heart attack.
Seventy per cent of these happen outside hospital and only 10 per cent of sufferers survive.
The UK has one of the highest levels of cardiac conditions in Europe, which is why the Community First Responder scheme was launched.
The project aims to cut mortality rates by establishing a group of volunteers in the community and equip them with a defibrillator which delivers an electrical shock to the heart to get it beating again.
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.
The Oundle first responder scheme has been running for five years.
Teresa Black joined the team of volunteers three 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.
"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 was one of the founder members of the Oundle team. She 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 volunteers are trained to deal with cardiac arrests, or heart attacks, but will also deal with calls such as strokes and chest pains.
Mrs Kummerehl said: "One time we had a cardiac arrest and I ended up going with the crew to the hospital and I continued doing CPR all the way there.
"Sometime we know the patient because we are local and we can talk to their relatives and calm them down."
She added: "Experience is important. Seeing someone who is really unwell is quite daunting. If someone is not breathing the sound is quite shocking.
"They can tell you what to do in training, but to have someone's life in your hands is quite awesome."
East Midlands Ambulance Service, which covers Northamptonshire, is looking to set up more schemes in the area, including Kettering.
Volunteers must be over 18 and a new scheme needs a minimum of six volunteers to make sure there is adequate cover.
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.
To find out more about Community First Responders call Sarah-Jayne Parsons on 07970 740641 or email Sarah-Jayne.Mann@emas.nhs.uk
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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