South Carlow Community First Responders have now been going to calls for the last twelve months
The 13 volunteers in the group were assembled a year ago, and they have been trained to respond to specific kinds of emergency calls up to 10 kilometres from from just outisde Borris so you could say from Kiltealy right across to Coppenagh in Kilkenny and from Goresbridge to St Mullins area.
In the crucial first few minutes, while the ambulance is on its way, they hope to arrive at a potentially fatal emergency, such as chest pain, a stroke, or cardiac arrest.
Volunteer Brian O’Farrell said “Over the last year. While we’ve responded to a lot of calls, it was 85 calls in total. We’ve also carried out a number of demos because we want to try and encourage people to get a better understanding of those skills that are needed and how you know they can make an impact in those couple of minutes while maybe we’re getting to the call and ambulance following on behind us as well”
You can listen back to the full interview below