Unresponsive man saved by campaigner and defibrillator

Martin Shipton

An unconscious and unresponsive man found lying flat on his back in a town centre street was saved by a campaigning councillor and a paramedic who gave cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.

Defibrillator campaigner and Llanelli town councillor Shaun Greaney applied lifesaving skills taught on a council-provided course to try to revive the man who ‘”ay prone, vulnerable and was barely breathing”.

He went into action after he spotted the man laying “perfectly still” in Stepney Street.

Fearing the man was dying, Cllr Greaney called 999 for an ambulance.

Chest compressions

“I was told to shout to the man, then check his breathing, which was barely detectable. I tried to rouse him by shaking him briefly.

“There was no response, so I had to do CPR. I did chest compressions, as I was trained to do,’ said the councillor.

“The call handler was on speaker phone and talked me through it all. There was no reaction from the man for ages. Despite my nerves I remembered the importance of remaining calm in an emergency situation.

“The call handler was amazing, offering encouragement, and counting ‘one, two, three, four’ for me to time every compression just right,” he added.

“It seemed to take ages and nothing was happening. The man was not reacting at all. He was prone, vulnerable in the street in the early hours, and barely breathing. I feared the man had either died, or was just about to die.’

Defibrillator

Cllr Greaney said it was at that moment that a first responder arrived with a defibrillator.

“I think he came in the nick of time,” he said.

“The ambulance service gets a lot of criticism but they were absolutely first rate, going into action swiftly and professionally.”

Councillor Greaney said the man came round’ just as he and the paramedic were threatened by a pair of drunks.

“The paramedic explained we had feared for their friend’s life and that he had been lying on his back in the middle of the street. The man we helped save and the drunks staggered off in the direction of Boots, despite our attempts to persuade him to go to hospital to be checked over.”

“Within minutes an ambulance and police were waiting for them at the junction of Cowell Street and Stepney Street,,” said Cllr Greaney.

“It proves how valuable our emergency services are. I’ve called for more defibrillators to be available 24/7 because they are stretched.

“They can’t be everywhere all the time. Our population is ageing and demand is rising. But it’s ironic that I was unable to get to the nearest public defibrillator quickly enough when there are three nearby which are only available in the day.

‘There’s one inside Llanelli Job Centre, just a few feet from the emergency, another at nearby St Elli Shopping Centre, and one in Wetherspoons.

”To my knowledge, there are three publicly accessible defibrillators available for use at night in the town centre – outside the town council offices at the Old Vicarage, near the bus station, and outside a solicitors in Murray Street. In this case they were too far away.

“Personally, I want to see defibrillators on all government and council buildings in busy areas. For the sake of less than £2,000 each, more lives would be saved.

“The chap we treated was just lucky we were there. Anything could have happened,” he said.