Lulworth First Responders

In the city you can have urgent medical aid with you in less than five minutes from an ambulance team or biker paramedic. Out in rural areas it takes a lot longer for an ambulance to reach you and the golden window for treatment of certain critical conditions such as a heart attack is lost. Unless you are lucky enough to have some first aiders around or are in an area covered by first responders.

 Lulworth has a community first response team  www.lulworthresponders.btck.co.uk This is supported by the South Western Ambulance service and kept going by donations from local businesses, the dedication of the team of volunteers and fund raising efforts including Ruth up at Durdle Door caravan park.

 On dry Saturday mornings round the corner from the Man O’War pub the tables are put up and you can go for a rummage among the collection of books and children’s toys that are donated and sold to raise money. The biggest genre of books is crime novels, followed by those of a more Mills and Boonish ilk. I have found some great books including Grasslands and Scrub by Chris Packham, a book on herbs by Jekka Mcvicar and a constant supply of light weight reading for rainy days on the couch.

Ruth’s hard work over the past nine years has raised over £20 000 for the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance and the Lulworth First Responders. Although the First Responders are volunteers there are financial running costs including vehicle maintenance and equipment such as helmets for first responders to wear when working near helicopters.

You can pretty much guarantee that a sunny weekend in the summer will bring at least one visit to Durdle Door by the First Responders and the coast guard or air ambulance. The quick response and care people receive is the same regardless of whether it is the misfortune of a complete accident or foolish decisions about jumping of great heights into the sea, scrambling up the cliffs while drunk……..

Out of my friends in the states a few of them have had a tough time getting and paying for medical treatment. Which really reminds me how lucky we are here to have the NHS. Since most people don’t know first aid we are also very lucky in Lulworth to have in the First Responders a team of people who give up a lot of their time to providing a service which is on occasion life saving.