A special information evening is being held in Longford next Tuesday in an effort to get a Community Responders Group set up which would be linked to the National Ambulance Service.
First Responders are volunteers who are notified to certain emergency calls in their area and who perform CPR as well as using a defibrillator where needed. The National Ambulance Service says that at present there are no CFR groups in Longford linked to them.
Liam Stewart is Community Engagement Officer with the Ambulance Service and is himself from a rural area in Cavan. He says there are real benefits in linking up to the service.
''If an emergency happened in our area before we aligned, somebody would ring somebody who would ring somebody else who eventually would get the defibrillator but that relied on two people being in a house, and one of them collapses, the person who was with the person that collapsed has to ring 999 so they mightn't be able to ring their neighbour to get the defibrillator, or they mightn't know who to ring. When a group is aligned with us, if there's a relevant call such as a cardiac arrest the 999 call taker will talk the person through CPR over the phone and the text message will instantly go out the community first responder in the area, in fact, the text message is sent out in under a minute of when the 999 call is answered.''
