LIVES interview with Howard Bradley

Grantham responder Howard Bradley highlights the impact of LIVES as it marks 25 years.

Transcript

00:00So, my name's Howie Bradley, I'm a first responder based in Grantham and I've been with Lives

00:10now for about two years.

00:14Well, I just reached a point in my life really where I thought everything I've done in my

00:19life has been about me, making as much money as I could for me and I wanted to do something

00:24which was going to really give back to the place where I live.

00:27I love where I live, I love Lincolnshire and it just seemed like a perfect opportunity

00:31to join Lives, see what I could learn and see what chances might come my way to really

00:35make a difference.

00:36So, for me, Lives is an incredible charity here in Lincolnshire, incredible and literally

00:46life-saving and the unique thing about it for me is that it is for the people of Lincolnshire

00:52and it is by the people of Lincolnshire and we're creating this service for our communities,

00:56our neighbours, our friends and that makes it really special and so for me that is why

01:01anybody should support the charity.

01:03It costs us a lot to run our operations, I'm a volunteer, all my time is for free but I

01:09have equipment which is expensive and so if people can help support us then that's really

01:14much appreciated.

01:15So, for me, I attended a job recently and it was a gentleman in his 70s who had collapsed

01:25and given himself quite a severe haemorrhage on his head and I was first on scene, I arrived

01:31at the same time as a paramedic and we got straight to work.

01:34The first thing we needed to do was get him immediately on oxygen and quite a lot of oxygen

01:39because he'd suffered a significant trauma.

01:41It was about 10 or 15 minutes before the ambulance arrived but we managed to stabilise him and

01:47start to try and get some response out of him which was tricky and it didn't happen

01:52immediately but we kept working with him, doing observations to see how he was, talking

01:57to him, talking to his family, it was his daughter that had come in and seen him on

02:01the floor covered in blood and said she'd seen that trauma and for us it was about working

02:07together, I worked really well with the paramedic and we got him into a position where he was

02:12ready to go to hospital and go on to the next stage of his care.