A TEAM of life-saving rural volunteers who have worked alongside Welsh Ambulance Service paramedics during the coronavirus crisis are celebrating a wind-powered cash boost worth more than £3,000 to fund new emergency equipment.

Denbigh Community First Responders (CFRs) who normally donate their spare time to attend 999 calls and administer emergency medical care, have stepped up to provide extra support to the regular ambulance service during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The First Responders, a nationwide organisation of Welsh Ambulance Service Trust-trained volunteers, are primarily trained to provide cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillator treatment to people before paramedics arrive, but have worked alongside them to help alleviate the pressure on the Service.

Now the Denbigh CFR branch are being helped to expand by a grant from the Brenig Wind Ltd Community Benefit Fund which distributes £150,000 a year to community projects in the area through Corwen-based rural regeneration agency Cadwyn Clwyd.

The 12-strong team, aged from their late 20s to their early 70s, have taken on a new role during the pandemic, helping to deliver medicine to hospitals and trained to assist paramedics to kit up in Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to keep them safe on 999 calls.

When they return to their regular life-saving work, they will have an additional £3,077 to fund two defibrillators, two additional kit bags, two oxygen bags and six new specialist CFR uniforms. This will enable them to have additional team members on shift at once.

Postman Dave MacKenzie, from Denbigh, who volunteers as a CFR seven nights a week, welcomed the grant which he said would go a long way to supporting their work.

The 56-year-old, who has volunteered as a first responder for the past 11 years, said: “We are overwhelmed to receive the grant because we can do so much with that. It’s going to make a huge difference to our team.

“The kit and uniforms are expensive. It’s a big task to keep the money rolling in and to keep going.

“Before coronavirus I was working from 2pm until 4am almost every single day. I don’t see it as volunteering, I was doing the same in Scotland with the Glenelg Mountain Rescue Team and I didn’t even think about it. To me, I was there for someone and I was available. It’s something that is programmed in me.

“The majority of our call outs are related to breathing problems, heart attacks and cardiac arrests. I’ve tried to figure out how many cardiac arrests I’ve attended and I cannot honestly remember. It has to be at least 50 or 60, but is probably even more.

“Covid-19 has made a huge difference to our work and we’re not responding to the same type of calls for safety reasons.”

Since the start of the pandemic, many team members have been trained to support the WAST’s buddy system and are attending and triaging 999 falls to free up emergency ambulances.

They can help kit the paramedics out in their high-grade PPE, safely disposing of protective equipment after each job, passing equipment and ensuring hygiene regulations are followed.

First responders are usually called out to code red emergency calls in their area but Dave, who moved to Denbigh in 2000, added: “We’re not going to any red calls at all at the moment.

“Paramedics must wear PP3 level full coveralls and protective clothing. We’re trained to dispose of all the kit in a hazardous bag after every job and it takes two to do it safely.

“We would also have to be in full PPE but we won’t go into any buildings, we stay outside. We’ve also been delivering medication to and from hospitals and attending falls which relieves pressure on the regular ambulance service.”