A group of community first responders have appealed to the public to help them raise money for their efforts in Rathmullan and across the county.
First Response is a group of local volunteers who are trained to provide emergency CPR and defibrillation in the event of a cardiac arrest (heart attack) in the Rathmullan area.
No funding is provided to the group by the Health Service Executive (HSE) so they rely on community donations to keep the service going.
Donegal native, Pauge McGuinness, who is an Intensive Care Doctor in Altnagelvin Hosptial, is one of 25 volunteers in Rathmullan alone and he explained to Donegal Daily the importance these groups have in the community.
“So these groups are based right around Donegal at the minute,” McGunniess said. “If you have an emergency, let’s say it was a heart attack, and you phone an ambulance, the response time from Letterkenny to Rathmullan is greater than 20 minutes.
“The ambulance service has now set up a service to train people to use a defibrillator and perform CPR. The system also sends a text alert system to those in your area that can perform CPR and use a defibrillator while an ambulance is on it’s way to you.
“There have been some really good cases across the county where community first responders have saved lives because they can get their quicker than the ambulance service.”
Community response groups first started in Ireland in late 2017, but only recently started in Donegal in the last six months, when more volunteers started coming forward to help.
“There is already about 25 on our team in Rathmullan from our initial callout,” he said. “We also have two defibrillators for the community and we are hoping to increase that because we are covering a wide area in Rathmullan.
McGuinness encourages those who want to enrol in the new service not be turned away if they don’t have prior medical experience.
“One of the nurses on the team is an A&E nurse in Letterkenny and she provides all the training, a half-day training.
“It is pretty relaxed and you have learned all the training by the end of it and they will only have to do it every three months.
“And the more people that get involved will mean the less the same people will get called away to do it regularly.”
Community First Response is a national organisation, which has saved countless lives across the country by training local volunteers.
If you want to volunteer and get involved, contact: communityfirstrespondergroup@gmail.com
A campaign has also been launched by the group to donate all unwanted clothes to your local Kernans to help support this great cause, the Rathmullan Community First Responders.
All proceeds from our Community Recycling Initiative off unwanted clothes will go to the Rathmullan Community First Responders until the end of March.
If you would like to make a separate donation you can visit their GoFundMe page here.
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