Plans under way to establish Mullingar's first Community First Responder (CFR) team

Plans are under way to establish Mullingar’s first Community First Responder (CFR) team.

Community First Responders are volunteers who are trained to recognise several life threatening emergencies, provide CPR and use a defibrillator.

In many places CFR teams play a vital role in keeping people alive until paramedics arrive.

One of the founders of the new group, trained first responder David Stafford says that Mullingar is one of the only large towns in the midlands that doesn’t have a CFR team.

Rather than take the place of paramedics from the national service, the new group will provide an extra link in the chain of survival, he says.

“The first 10 minutes after a cardiac arrest are vital as the chances of survival fall ten percent with every minute,” he said.

“People who join the CPR group will be put on a roster system and will have access to a mobile defibrillator in their own vehicles.

“When a 999 call comes in to the National Ambulance Service about someone with chest pains or a suspected cardiac arrest, the message will be relayed to the group.

“They will also dispatch an ambulance. When someone calls 999 about someone who is unconscious and possibly not breathing, they will be told how to do chest only compressions.

“We would then hopefully arrive within five or six minutes with our defibrillator and will treat the patient until the ambulance arrives with advanced life support,” Mr Stafford said.

In addition to attending emergencies, Mr Stafford says that one of the most important functions for the CFR team will be providing potentially life saving CPR training to members of the public.

For this, the group will join forces with Tomás Nally of the Dominick Street Traders Association.

At present, the defibrillator located at Rochforts on Dominick Street is the only one that is accessible 24 hours a day.

Mr Nally, who is a nurse in the Midlands Regional Hospital Mullingar, has trained 50 people living and working in the Dominick Street area to use the defibrillator.

He and Mr Stafford plan to run free community CPR courses upstairs in Rochforts in the coming months.

Although participants will not be obliged to join the CFR group, Mr Stafford says he’s hopeful that some will.

The aim of the classes, he says, is to train as many people as possible because when someone has a cardiac arrest, it is often a family member who is with them in those first crucial minutes.

When the group is up and running they will also offer to go out and test the more than 20 defibrillators currently located around the Mullingar area.

Although people go to great effort to raise the money needed to purchase these life saving pieces of equipment, many groups do not realise that they need to be tested regularly as their batteries can go flat, and their pads have to be replaced regularly.

Information evening

Mr Stafford says that there has been a positive response on social media from the public and he is expecting a large crowd at an information evening in the Annebrook Hotel on Thursday May 23 at 7.30pm.