The Blessington Community First Responder Unit was set up in April 2005. As of Jan 2011 we have responded to 176 callouts in the local area. The unit consists of 15 active members from the local community who provide 24 hour, 7 day a week emergency assistance to the Eastern Regional Ambulance Service. This is a wholly voluntary service provided by members of the community for the community.

Each Responder receives intensive training from the Eastern Regional Ambulance Service before they are accredited under the Community First Responder Scheme. The Unit has a training session once a month to ensure members skills are kept up to date. Members are periodically assessed by the Ambulance Service to ensure they remain competent in their skills.

When someone from the area dials 999 or 112, they are transferred to the Ambulance Control Centre for Blessington, which is based in Naas. The Control Centre will then ring the Community Responder who is on-call and they will be given the address of the scene and the nature of the callout. The Responder then travels to the scene in their own car and administers care to the patient until the ambulance arrives. The average response time from receiving a callout to arriving at the scene is 6 minutes, on occasions it has been as quick as 4 minutes.

The Responder carries a medical bag which contains among other things oxygen and a defibrillator. The type of callouts that members have attended to to date include chest pain, cardiac arrest, stroke, seizures, choking, fainting, shortness of breath and other breathing difficulties.

Log on to www.wicklowcfr.ie to learn more about this voluntary service.

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