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Why I’m cycling across Britain for the Red Cross

By Guest
April 20, 2010 at 12:51 pm

Guest post from Megan Lucas

It had never crossed my mind that I would need the services of the Red Cross.

I thought I was aware of many of the wonderful ways in which the British Red Cross helps people both in the UK and across the globe, but clearly I didn’t know about them all. That changed very quickly two days before Christmas in 2008, when I found myself receiving their help after my life suddenly, and without warning, was turned upside-down.

At 5 in the morning, my partner and I were woken by the sound of exploding Christmas decorations, the bedroom quickly started to fill with thick, black and acrid smoke, followed by a further bang as the house electrics finally gave in, combined with the most terrible noise of the fire taking hold in the living room. Our home had turned into one of the most inhospitable environments imaginable in an instant due to an electrical fault with our television.

We happened to be renovating at the time which had resulted in our smoke detector being temporarily unplugged, so our lives were saved by the noise of the exploding baubles, and in another fortuitous moment, the front door keys were quickly found so we could escape the house and call 999. The fire brigade arrived within minutes, although it felt like an eternity, and they set to work extinguishing the fire whilst an ambulance arrived to take us both to hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation and a few minor injuries.

Meanwhile, the lovely people from the Red Cross’ Fire and Emergency Support Service arrived at the house and began to take care of our recently arrived and concerned parents and make the fire-fighters a richly deserved cup of tea before coming to meet us at the hospital. They found us there, blackened, shell-shocked with no idea what to do next.

They proceeded to do the most amazing job; talking things through with us, giving us advice on what to do next, making sure we were ok and providing us with spare, clean clothes that were kindly donated by Tesco. They said the right thing, at the right time, in the right way, for which I am eternally grateful, and until that day I didn’t know the service even existed.

Now, just over  a year on I can happily say the damage has been repaired and life has returned to normality. It hasn’t all been plain sailing but thanks to the British Red Cross a traumatic event was made that little bit easier to cope with at a critical time.

Shortly after the event I decided I needed to give something back because I was so touched by what they did for me, so this summer I will be cycling a 1000 mile route between John O’ Groats and Lands End. I hope that this will raise a significant sum so the British Red Cross can continue to help people in situations like ours, along with all the other wide reaching and varied situations in which they do such fantastic work.

Megan’s JustGiving page

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 20th, 2010 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Fundraising and events, 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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