The Castledermot Responders Group is in need of more volunteers, with full training provided.
Chairperson Ronan Lambe – who explained that the group was set up in 2013 by his wife, Ciara Dowling – said that at present they have about seven active members with a further one or two that do admin.
“That’s the smallest amount we’ve ever been down to, at one stage we would have had over 20,” he said.
Potential volunteers don’t need any particular aptitude or skills, as long as they’re physically able to do CPR. “We come from all backgrounds and we come from all professions,” said Ronan. “There’s engineers, there’s accountants, there’s mechanics, there’s everything in the group.”
Ronan added that the official training to get certified by the Irish Heart Foundation “is a four-hour course and that’s what we’re actually putting on on February the 22nd for new members.”
And there’s additional training such as online courses to do with PPE and a course on CISM – Critical Incident Stress Management. “How to deal with a stressful situation once you’ve left it,” Ronan said.
Like many groups and organisations, COVID impacted the Castledermot group’s work. A few months after the March lockdown in 2020 they were stood down officially “and it took over a year before we were allowed to go back out, and then we were only allowed to attend cardiac arrest calls. This would have been towards, say, May 2021. So, things were very quiet because cardiac arrests wouldn’t make up the majority of the calls we would attend.”
Ronan told me that chest pains “would probably be the one we get called out for the most.”
Five kilometres is their scope of operations, but they’ve been dispatched to areas beyond that, like Oak Park in Carlow, Rathvilly and over near Baltinglass. And the group would like to make the community aware of where defibrillators are located, with 11 in the wider Castledermot area: Behan’s garage (2), Teach Diarmada, Scoil Diarmada, Castledermot GAA, Kilkea National School, Levitstown National School, Morrissey’s Ballyburn, Walshe’s Civil Engineering Knocknacree, Moone (beside Piers Café) and Dunne’s farm entrance Knockroe. On their Facebook page you’ll find maps with all the locations and Eircodes.
If you’re interested in volunteering with the group, you can contact Ronan on 086 1670276.
The Castledermot Responders Group is in need of more volunteers, with full training provided.
Chairperson Ronan Lambe – who explained that the group was set up in 2013 by his wife, Ciara Dowling – said that at present they have about seven active members with a further one or two that do admin.
“That’s the smallest amount we’ve ever been down to, at one stage we would have had over 20,” he said.
Potential volunteers don’t need any particular aptitude or skills, as long as they’re physically able to do CPR. “We come from all backgrounds and we come from all professions,” said Ronan. “There’s engineers, there’s accountants, there’s mechanics, there’s everything in the group.”
Ronan added that the official training to get certified by the Irish Heart Foundation “is a four-hour course and that’s what we’re actually putting on on February the 22nd for new members.”
And there’s additional training such as online courses to do with PPE and a course on CISM – Critical Incident Stress Management. “How to deal with a stressful situation once you’ve left it,” Ronan said.
Like many groups and organisations, COVID impacted the Castledermot group’s work. A few months after the March lockdown in 2020 they were stood down officially “and it took over a year before we were allowed to go back out, and then we were only allowed to attend cardiac arrest calls. This would have been towards, say, May 2021. So, things were very quiet because cardiac arrests wouldn’t make up the majority of the calls we would attend.”
Ronan told me that chest pains “would probably be the one we get called out for the most.”
Five kilometres is their scope of operations, but they’ve been dispatched to areas beyond that, like Oak Park in Carlow, Rathvilly and over near Baltinglass. And the group would like to make the community aware of where defibrillators are located, with 11 in the wider Castledermot area: Behan’s garage (2), Teach Diarmada, Scoil Diarmada, Castledermot GAA, Kilkea National School, Levitstown National School, Morrissey’s Ballyburn, Walshe’s Civil Engineering Knocknacree, Moone (beside Piers Café) and Dunne’s farm entrance Knockroe. On their Facebook page you’ll find maps with all the locations and Eircodes.
If you’re interested in volunteering with the group, you can contact Ronan on 086 1670276.
