Not previously reported here, was the teams attendance on Easter Monday 6th April, at the Bolton ICD Support Group Easter Family Fun Day.
Our fantastic supporters and friends at Bolton ICD Group had kindly invited us to this, their first Easter Fun Day, which proved to be a fantastic success.
The following report has been made by our newly appointed Equipment Officer – Medical, Mark Scott;
Bolton ICD (Implantable Cardiac Defibrillator) Support Group was founded to support patients and their families after an ICD has been implanted into a patient. Currently they raise funds – and awareness, to purchase AEDs for the local community, and have achieved what can only be described as amazing results in this respect. Not only are they a fantastic local charity, they are brilliant supporters of the team having provided us with a defibrillator (also called an AED which stands for Automatic External Defibrillator) located in our Ford Transit Minibus / Crewbus Ambulance Vehicle call sign Bolton Mobile 5, thus ensuring our fleet of four Land Rovers, the minibus, and the Control Vehicle are all currently equipped with a defibrillator. These devices are now commonplace in public places and are used to provide a special type of electric shock to patients suffering a cardiac arrest who are being kept alive by CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation or “chest compressions”). All of the Team’s callout list members are trained annually in the application of CPR and the use of defibrillators.
The Team were thus delighted to be asked to attend the Bolton ICD Easter Family Fun Day held on Easter Monday 6th April 2015 at Kearsley Cricket Club. Our Land Rover Defender Mountain Rescue Ambulance Bolton Mobile 2 attended with very experienced callout team members Mike Marsh and Mark Scott. Mike and Mark were later joined by callout list members Mike Wakerley and our DVSD Search Dog Handler Dave Marsh (with his DVSD Search Dog Sasha ), reserve callout list and very long serving member Diane Blakely, and Support Group Member Iain Clarkson. A display of equipment was arranged around the Land Rover, featuring (of course) a resuscitation dummy and a training AED. Many children expressed an interest in the forlorn-looking dummy’s plight (“he’s a bit off colour”) and were shown how to do basic hands-only CPR.
Emergency Services present at the Fun Day, which was opened by the Mayor and Mayoress of Bolton included Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, North West Ambulance Service First Responders, St John Ambulance, Greater Manchester Police and ourselves. Side shows and stalls, children’s rides and food outlets completed the day. At one point in the afternoon a pre-arranged “flash mob” took place where representatives from all these services (including our Mark Scott) suddenly appeared in front of Bolton Radio FM’s trailer with resuscitation dummies and started doing CPR in time to “Stayin’ Alive” being blasted out by Bolton FM’s loudspeakers. Soon tired emergency services personnel were replaced by children and adults from the crowd making the whole thing good fun as well as instructive.
All in all it was a very enjoyable day. We would like to thanks Bolton ICD, and in particular our great friend and supporter Tracey Wilkinson, Fundraising Manager for Bolton ICD Support Group, for their continuing support and for inviting us to this hugely successful and worthwhile event.
Please also see website ‘News’ reports dated Wednesday 21st August 2013, Thursday 22nd August 2013 and Sunday 22nd February 2015.
