A new breed of heroes

Yesterday was quite a day… and I mean QUITE a day!
We started by getting up at 2.30am, some of us even slightly earlier.

We met in town and got divided into 2 cars to drive down from Edinburgh to South Shields to help out the 1st aiders for the Great North Run. As the event's website says, this is the world’s biggest, most prestigious half-marathon!

Fact is, we expected about 50,000 runners, we had a full field hospital operational plus several other 1st aid posts scattered along the route.

For those coming down from Edinburgh the tradition is to stop kind of half way there at the Purdy Inn (though we still call it Greasy Joe's from the previous owners!) and have breakfast all together before the long day begins.

All in all this year was good... a few hiccups here and there but nothing related to us who mostly
dealt with grazes, blisters, friction burns (yes, we did hand out quite a lot of Vaseline!), exhaustion, dehydration and some strains and sprains…

In a quiet moment I even went for a walk and befriended the most amazing guide dog ever...

... while the Red Arrows were painting in the sky!

What we did was hardly exciting for some of the best 1st aiders in the UK (...and sorry if I keep on reminding you guys that we did win the national 1st aid competition!) but after all, what needs to be done needs to be done and so we took care of it… after all it’s about the people and not about us!

But yeah, we were indeed complaining about boredom on the way back up to Edinburgh and do you know how much time for complaining there is in a 3 hours drive?!?

Except… someone had some other plans for us instead of letting us wasting such a long time.

Just about 10 minutes after we had left the race we came to a roundabout and we noticed a car shooting towards the lights, glass on the floor, a man from another vehicle running inside the hit car and we just knew it was time for us to spring into action!

Dan, Rachel, Scott and I jumped out of our car and ran across the road to assist at the crash site.
A bus had just rear ended the car whose back windscreen had literally exploded.
Dan and I started taking care of the car driver while Scott and Rachel ran to the bus to make sure the driver was ok too.

For those who imagine ER rescuing it really was nothing of that sort... but in a certain sense it was better!

All of our equipment was on another vehicle, we were just going home and happened to come across someone who needed help and what made it special was the way we all worked together as a team.

No rehearsal, no warning, no time to panic!

The ambulance was called, so were the fire brigades…
Fluorescent jackets on, we made the are safe, hazard lights on, hand break pulled, ignition key out of the panel, briefing ready for the emergency services, reassuring words for the two casualties and all of this done looking after each other as well as looking after the 2 people in need!

I have rarely seen such coordination in a team without the need of a leader, we all knew what we had to do and swapped positions around to make sure that everything was done in the best way…

When we left the scene of the accident the atmosphere in the car was very different from the one there was when we came across the crash.
Our spirits were high, we did what we have been training for a long time to do and we did it well… how rewarding! And how wonderful to be able to help people when they need it…

We were so high from the experience that we decided we had to celebrate and ended up going to the movies together and getting a massive ice-cream…

When the movie finished I innocently said: “So, hand up if you didn’t fall asleep at least 10 minutes during the show”… Nobody actually lifted the hand and we just started laughing…

Apparently being the new breed of heroes can be quite tyring!