Firefighters Unite with Paramedics
From today firefighters will work alongside the ambulance service to help answer cardiac arrest call outs across Greater Manchester.
Firefighters will be on standby from today to help the ambulance service deal with 999 emergencies involving cardiac arrests.
The North West Ambulance Service are called out to around five and a half thousand cases each year. Call handlers will now page the nearest fire station to see if there are any crews closeby that can assist.
The scheme is one of the first of its kind in the UK and aims to increase survival rates of heart attacks to 65%.
WATCH: As Firefighter Dunc Beech and his colleague in Ambulance Service talk us through the scheme:
The partnerships comes after months of planning and talks between Greater Manchester Fire Service, NWAS and their Unions.
LISTEN: As Fire Chief Peter O'Reilly explains how the scheme has already saved lives:
The scheme works in a similar way to the Trust’s volunteer Community First Responder scheme, where trained members of the public are despatched to life-threatening emergency calls within their local community. The added advantage to despatching fire crews, is their ability to respond on blue lights therefore arriving more quickly to a situation where literally every second can mean the difference between life and death.
LISTEN: As Director of Operation at NWAS Derek Cartwright talks us through how the scheme will work:
The two organisations will be tweeting details of any incidents NWAS despatches GMFRS to through today (Tuesday 15th September).
Follow via @manchesterfire and @nwambulance and look out for #team999