Red Cross Blogs

Learn first aid. Get on TV.

By Mark Cox
January 28, 2011 at 3:29 pm

It’s a well-established fact that many Red Cross first aiders are comfortable ‘performing’ in front of an audience. And no wonder. Just think: the public pressure, the adrenalin rush, all those gasps of admiration from weak-kneed onlookers. It’s like the X Factor, only with bandages.

Our public events volunteers – no wallflowers, they – regularly dive headlong into packed crowds to tackle all kinds of ailments and injuries. Naturally, they tend to prefer covering occasions where press photographers might be on hand to capture their heroics. And at big events with TV coverage, you’ll inevitably see them loitering within range of the cameras, elbowing each other out of shot and hoping for an accident.

Now, as so often with the Cox blog, not all of the above is strictly true. (Really, people, I thought you would have learned by now). But last week a couple of first aid volunteers actually did find themselves responding to a real-life emergency in front of the TV cameras.

It happened when a visitor to a Red Cross centre in Birmingham collapsed and began having a seizure. First aiders Lynda Hall and Ade Powney were straight on the scene, monitoring the casualty and making sure he didn’t sustain any further injuries until the seizure ended.

So far, so normal – but then things turned a bit Hollywood. The motorcycle paramedic who turned up minutes later was Mark Hayes – star of the Channel 5 documentary series Emergency Bikers – and he had a full film crew in tow.

Before you could say: ‘Will I get an appearance fee?’ the cameras were rolling, the boom-mikes were out and the whole incident was recorded for TV posterity. It may well be appearing in your front room in the near future.

Whether Lynda and Ade have been offered further TV work – a guest slot on Holby City, say – off the back of their onscreen escapade had not been ascertained at the time of going to press. But I bet all those other fame-hungry first aiders, who’ve only ever managed to get a blurred photograph in the local papers, will be spitting with envious rage.

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Tags: First aid, first aid tips, first aid training, volunteer, Volunteering, volunteers

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