News
LWC Lifesaver
Sarah Walker | 9 October 2024
Lord Wandsworth mechanic, Jason Browne breathes life into more than engines. He explains how he combines his career at LWC with volunteering as a Community First Responder.
When Jason Browne’s one-year-old son had a 90-minute seizure, everything changed.
“He ended up at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, having had a febrile convulsion,” he remembers. “I decided then that I wanted to train as a medic.”
14 years later and LWC mechanic, Jason is combining his work at the College with that of a Community First Responder for the South Central Ambulance Service.
He arrives at his workshop at 5am. “I look after anything mechanical within school,” he explains. “So the grounds care equipment, minibuses, electric buggies. I also help out with the grounds department and do anything they need me to do.”
But from 6am, Jason also logs on to his Responder phone and makes himself available to attend category-red calls made to the ambulance service. “I go to cardiac arrests, strokes, anaphylaxis, diabetic crisis…anything which requires ambulance back-up within 30 minutes,” he elaborates. It’s a job that can see him called out to a variety of emergencies, in a number of different locations. “We go wherever they need us,” he points out. “Yesterday I attended two jobs in Basingstoke and was the first medic there by 20 minutes. But I’ll go further than Basingstoke if I need to. The furthest I’ve been is Southsea, sometimes Southampton.”
“It’s funny…most patients calm down when they see a person arrive in green”
—Jason Browne
Jason now looks after a team of Community First Responders in Alton and Bordon. He accepts that it’s a big commitment; “You need to volunteer for a minimum of 20 hours a month to be a Community First Responder. At the moment, I’m doing 40-50 a week because of the pressures on the ambulance service and because I really want to help people. There are people dying who don’t need to.”
In order to respond to some of the most serious 999 calls during the week, Jason has come to an agreement with Lord Wandsworth College. “You need a massively flexible employer,” he admits. “I sent an email to my managers, explaining the pressures the ambulance service was under and asking if I could help out as a Responder during my working hours. I had an answer the next day saying, ‘Absolutely fine, no problem.’ With the amount of jobs that we’re attending, LWC is making a massive difference in the local area, to local people.”
Jason has now developed a slick routine combining both jobs. He books out the emergency response car from 5am every morning and parks it in the LWC car park. His Lord Wandsworth sweatshirt disguises his green South Central Ambulance Service polo shirt, until the point at which the calls come. “It’s funny,” he smiles, “most patients calm down when they see a person arrive in green.”
So how does this lifesaver feel about those he’s managed to help? He pauses… “If you can bring someone back after something like a cardiac arrest, then it’s memorable. At the beginning, it was a massive adrenaline rush, but now it’s part of the job. It’s very satisfying though. Even going out to lift an elderly person, who’s been on the floor for hours in a lower category call at the weekend, gives you a big boost.”
Jason admits that he rarely hears of the long-term fate of his patients. “Once you walk away, you don’t really know what happens next,” he says. But on rare occasions, he’s ended up meeting them again, quite by chance. “There was one gentleman who had contracted sepsis. His airway was compromised and I had to keep him breathing all the way to hospital in the back of the ambulance. Then, six weeks later, I ran into him on Alton High Street. He shook my hand. To see him like that after being so poorly was great.”
There’s no doubt that Jason is proud of his work as a Community First Responder and is well aware of the pressures the ambulance service is currently under. “We’ve definitely seen demand increase in the five years that I’ve been volunteering. But I really enjoy helping people. If someone needs help and I can do it, then I will.”
You can find out more about the work of Community First Responders and how to support them here.