Cranmore responders trained to work with ambulance service
THE launch of the AED Community First Responder (CFR) Programme took place in Cranmore on Tuesday, which sees a defibrillator in place with nine people from Cranmore and the surrounding areas trained to use it. They were presented with their certificates at the Cranmore Co-op from Mayor of Sligo Municipal District Cllr Rosaleen O’Grady.
She spoke at length about the significance of such a service in Cranmore, praising all those involved in developing the programme. Mark Callanan from the National Ambulance Service also praised the participants who are now trained as Community First Responders. Mark said: “The ability of Community First Responders to work alongside the National Ambulance Service has been shown to increase chances of survival.”
Marisa Moran from Cranmore Regeneration who was a key figure in getting this initiative off the ground thanked everyone involved. She spoke of how it had always been a vision of the Cranmore Regeneration Team to get a defibrillator in an external box and AED Responders from within the community trained to use it.
Mark Elliott (Community Development Officer) with the Cranmore Co-op will be co ordinating the programme which went live on Wednesday. Mark said: “The basis of how it works is if a 999 or 112 call is received by the National Ambulance Service (NAS) in regards to a cardiac arrest or choking, they send a call out to a host phone which is allocated at the Cranmore Co-op.
“This call will then be relayed out to the nine responders who, if available will respond to the call. The AED is housed at the porch at 7 Devin’s Drive and CFR’s all have the access code for this.
“We would like to thank the Civil Defence who trained the nine responders and especially our funders from the Healthy Ireland Initiative and the Local Community Development committee (LCDC) who provided funding under the Community Enhancement Programme (CEP) 2018,” Mark added.