Welcome

Good Evening and welcome to my blog!
I am a community Responder for the south central ambulance service.
"ummmmmmm whats that" i hear you ask, well I will try to explain....
we are all volunteers who are selected and trained by the ambulance service to attend life threatening calls such as heart attacks, chest pains etc...
we carry oxygen, defib and other small pieces of kit. We receive these calls by text on our mobile phones and if we are able to attend, we telephone control, who ultimately decide if we are required to attend. They dispatch us to the address if necessary.

I have been a Responder for over a year now and really enjoy the challenge and it has to be the best job in the world.
Obviously it does have its down side and yes I always shed tones of tears if my attempts of Resuscitation fail, no matter what age my patients are!

Responding isn't about response times and meeting government figures, its about saving lives in the community where you live.

Did you know that:-

The idea of Community Responders originated in America due to the work of Dr Richard Cummins. He discovered that if a series of events took place in a set sequence, a heart attack victim had a greater chance of survival. These events are known as the “Chain of Survival”.

Which are:- Early Access - to get help. Early CPR - to buy time. Early defib - to start the heart. Early Advanced CardiacLife Support - to stabilise.

When put into practice in America by increasing public awareness, training people in basic life support and placing defibrillators in the community it improved the pre-hospital survival rate to between 25% and 30%.

It has also been suggested that for every 1 minute that a heartattack patient does not have access to defibrillation that persons chances of survival decrease by 10%.

If you want further information or would like to become a community responder take a look at http://www.southcentralambulance.nhs.uk/html/pages/dynamicpage.php?pagerec=20

So my preaching is over and to continue........

We dont have blue lights and sirens!! We abide by the laws of the road and speed limits!

So how come we arrive before the ambulance..........
Well sometimes we don't! I have been overtaken on a number of occassions by the ambulance on blues racing to the same destination as me!

Being based in a market town in South West England , ambulances for the towns patients can come from Kidlington, however at busy times i have met crews of ambulances from Banbury, Didcot & Chipping Norton. This can take 10mins of more even when travelling with all lights flashing and sirens whailing! So, god willing and the towns OAP drivers either having their afternoon nap or already in bed, we can arrive within 8 mins from the patient making the call.

We have a great group of responders working here! Our paid jobs range from small business owners to accounts clerks to Managing Directors!!

We all have the same goal to help preserve life, sometimes our patients don't want us to, but we usually manage to talk them round!!!

Just before I sign off I though I would let you know that i will post regularly about my adventures however everyone will be anon and no real names will be used!

Till later...........