'You're dealing with family at chaotic scenes' - Meet the Limerick woman saving lives

Meet Janet O'Connor from Limerick who is a dedicated volunteer with Ennis Road Community First Responders.

Janet is 51 years old and has just finished a two-year course in University of Limerick (UL) on community wellness and is now doing a health and safety course in University College Cork.

She is also a carer for a family member who is neurodivergent and has been living in Caherdavin for the past 18 years after falling in love with a Caherdavin man.

Janet joined Ennis Road Community First Responders three years ago after she spotted their recruitment stand one day while shopping in Dunnes Stores.

"I went over and I got chatting to Rory, who was doing the demonstrations, and he told me about the group. They've been up and running for the last eight years, and Rob would have been the founding member of the group. 

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"So he told me about the group and what they do, and I thought, 'God, I'd love to get involved in that' because at the time, I was doing my CWEL course with UL, and I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to integrate into the community. 

"Even though I live in Caherdavin, I'm from Croom, so apart from one or two people, I wouldn't know a lot of people in the area."

Since joining, Janet says she has loved the past few years volunteering for the first responder group and that it is extremely fulfilling.

"I love it but I do think it takes a certain type of person, because we only deal with critical incidents such as choking, strokes, cardiac arrests, and chest pains. 

"So what happens is, when a 999 call comes in to the National Ambulance Service, we get the call as well. And we're within 8-10 minutes of every call that comes in. We do any call this side of the four bridges.

"So we cover a big area. We attend the call and we go ahead of the ambulance, assess the situation.

"If there's a deterioration or whatever, we can ring the ambulance crew ourselves, let them know what's going on. When they come, we will do a handover with them, we'll give them all the vital details that they need when they get there, and they'll take over from there."

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Janet said that anybody can volunteer for the group and they are always looking for members. They have around 35 members in total.

"We have members with us that don't go on calls. They'd be older ladies or gents. And they don't necessarily go out on live calls, but they attend training every month and they get involved in our recruitment and our fundraising and all that.

"We're currently in Cleeves. We have a base there and a storeroom, but we're about to lose that building soon. So we are looking for a new base.

"There's new apartment blocks, I think, going in there. So we're losing that building due to refurbishments.

"We also keep all our stock, supplies and our training equipment there as well. So we are going to be looking for a new home."

Janet said that the team also run life-saving courses like first aid and basic cardiac arrest to schools and local businesses.

"You are giving up your free time. It's a very fulfilling role to have in the community and it's just been one of the most fulfilling things I've ever been part of, personally.

"There is the medical side of it but you also have the personal side of it, which is you are there for the family because you're nearly always entering a scene that's quite traumatic for the family.

"You're dealing with family members at chaotic scenes, they're terribly worried or fearful. They're highly emotional and they're emotionally charged scenes you're entering. 

"We support each other very well, you know, we'd never attend a scene without ringing each other afterwards, seeing how we're getting on and we go for a coffee with each other, have a chat about it.

"We're like a little family and that's the way we treat each other. We're all very close. We have our little barbecue once a year.

"That's quite important to us that we look out for each other in those situations because we are always entering a critical incident.

"I would 100% encourage people to join because you are your family's first responder. You may be the first person on the scene and you may be at the scene when something happens. And to have that training, that basic life support training, is vital and everybody should do something.

"Everybody should know how to do CPR, basic CPR. It's not hard to learn. We should be encouraging children as well.

"I would also encourage people if you ask your child, where do they live? What's their eircode? You know, most of them don't know. 

"Every fridge in the country should have a sticker on it that gives the address and the eircodes because the first thing when you ring 999, if a child or anyone has to ring 999, the first thing they'll ask for is the for the eircode."

Janet said that she had responded to a cardiac arrest call the morning of this interview. She had sat down to drink a cup of coffee when she had to run off with an AED in her car to attend the scene.

"I didn't even get to take a drink out of the coffee. I was able to get into my car, I've an AED in the car, get to the scene and assist."