A night of the town with 999 services
1:50pm Saturday 23rd August 2008
ON the night that students across Warrington celebrated their A-levels, reporters Joanna Lean and Miranda Newey spent the evening shadowing the town’s firefighters and paramedics.
Below are their accounts of what happened on Thursday, August 14.
Fire correspondent Joanna spent the evening dressed with firefighters waiting for a call.
“At Warrington Fire Station, A levels results night was a quiet one,” says Joanna.
“Early in the evening one of the two Warrington-based engines was called to a house fire in Culcheth while the other was assisting other crews at an incident in Macclesfield.
“Once both had returned the firefighters spent the evening training while waiting for a call- out, practising using lines to rescue casualties.
“Training is an important part of the firefighters’ lives and they spend a lot of their time ensuring everybody knows exactly what to do in any situation.
“They also check each fire engine to be sure that all equipment is working properly and aboard the engine.
“In the early hours of Friday the crews were called to two small fires.”
Meanwhile, Miranda patrolled the town as a passenger of a Rapid Response Vehicle (RRV) with Mick Potter, a paramedic of 23 years.
“Results night appeared to have little impact on the town’s emergency services.
“The evening started at around 8pm with the RRV driving around the borough waiting for call-outs, she said “A RRV is usually the first to the scene of an incident, but is always backed up by an ambulance. The paramedic assesses the situation and updates colleagues with information about which ambulance needs to be sent or what step needs to be taken.
“With red calls (the most serious and life-threatening), paramedics have a national target time of eight minutes to get to the scene, 19 minutes for amber calls, which are serious but not life-threatening and one hour for green calls, which are less serious and not life-threatening.
“The first emergency was a teenage girl who was found unconscious in Howley after consuming high levels of alcohol. Her friends had left her and an ambulance was called to take her to Warrington Hospital.
“Mr Potter told me at weekends in the summer time about 75 to 85 per cent of incidents are alcohol related “He dismissed claims that Warrington has a problem with drinking, saying it was today’s culture.
“An emergency call came through to Mr Potter’s high-tech satellite system just after 10pm alerting him to attend an Orford address.
“His high-speed skilled driving saw him at the scene within four minutes – so quickly that the sex, age and description of the patient and the injury hadn’t even been received.
“The patient was a confused elderly man who had been found walking late at night. An ambulance was called and arrived at the scene within 10 minutes.
“There were no further call outs for Mr Potter before midnight, meaning that Warrington residents were in good health.”