Red Cross Blogs

Snow support for terminally ill man

By Mark Cox
December 3, 2010 at 11:17 am

I heard a heart-breaking story today. A woman called Sue, who lives in a Cornish village, has been caring for her elderly husband Pete who is in the final stages of terminal cancer. As if life wasn’t stressful enough, this week she found herself completely cut off by the treacherous conditions and unable to get out for food and vital medical supplies.

Sue, who has been with Pete for 35 years, said: “Pete is very, very ill and being nursed at home by me. This snowfall caught everyone by surprise and I can’t leave my husband so there’s nothing I can do, which is the most awful feeling. You feel so helpless.”

But hang on; it’s not all bad. Sue phoned her local council, who contacted the Red Cross. Volunteers Mike Myers and Paul Jones were soon on their way, and their specialist driver training – coupled with a Land Rover 4×4 vehicle – enabled them to negotiate the nigh-impassable roads.

A grateful Sue said: “They’ve been absolute life-savers. They came down a very dodgy hill to get the supplies to us and it was such a relief. They even came back to deliver Pete’s medication. I’m so grateful.”

All across the country, our volunteers have spent the past week out in all weathers dealing with absolute medical necessities that simply cannot wait: ferrying patients back and forth for dialysis and chemotherapy; taking terminally ill patients home to die in peace; even helping out at a home birth.

In these freezing temperatures, you have to take your woolly hat off to that kind of dedication. And dear reader: I don’t normally do this, but today I’m holding out my woolly hat and just saying, you know, if you maybe happen to have a spare few quid, you could do far worse than make a wee donation to help support all this inspiring work.

Our volunteers have been superb this week. Just ask Sue and Pete.

Follow the Red Cross response to severe weather throughout the UK on Twitter.

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Tags: emergency response, First aid, snow, volunteer, Volunteering, volunteers

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 3rd, 2010 at 11:17 am and is filed under Emergencies, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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