Green Watch at Rayleigh Weir receive CFO Commendations

A week ago today, Chief Fire Officer/Chief Executive Rick Hylton visited the crews at Green Watch, Rayleigh Weir to present Chief Fire Officer Commendations to the crews.

Crew Manager James Hall and firefighters Luke Hardy, Mark Kinsalla, Mark Baines and Keith Dunn, were recognised for their actions and support with the ambulance service at an incident involving a patient in South Benfleet.

In the early hours of 5 January 2021, the ambulance service called our Service to help assist with a patient who was seriously ill at their home in South Benfleet.

A man in his 70’s had suffered a cardiac arrest and was in a time critical condition.

A paramedic had established a heartbeat following the cardiac arrest, but the ambulance team could not remove the patient from the house to get him to hospital without putting his life in danger.

The patient needed to be kept as flat as possible to save his life and any sudden movement, with a tilt left or right, could have put the patient back into cardiac arrest.

Mitchell Greatrex, Paramedic from East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust said:

“The main problem was the layout of the property with very narrow hallways and staircase. We needed the fire service to help remove the patient to hospital in the safest way possible without endangering his life.

“With the help of the crews on Green Watch who were able to be on the scene within minutes of our call, and then use their expertise and skills on extrication, together working as a team, we were able to save this man, a grandfather was able to see his grandchildren again and be back at home with his family.

Mitchell added: “It’s on very rare occasions that people can survive this type of incident and walk out of the hospital. The crews should be very proud of their actions that day.”