St Andrew's First Aid launches £500,000 charity fundraising campaign
The campaign will be fronted by volunteer, Liz Seymour, from Hamilton who joined the charity 18-years-ago. Ms Seymour lost her own son, Mark, in 2017 to a suspected cardiac arrest when he was 34-years-old. Despite her best efforts to revive him with CPR, Ms Seymour was unable to save his life.
Four months later, on her first outing with St Andrew’s First Aid since the death of her son, she found herself again performing CPR. A spectator at a football match had suffered a cardiac arrest.
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Hide AdMr Seymour said: “St Andrew’s First Aid has literally been a lifeline for me. After the loss of my son, they were like a second family and gave me the love, support and kindness I needed.
“Although it was really hard, it was almost cathartic to be involved in saving someone’s life during my first event back. My ability to not freeze is testament to the top class training I received.
“We all have the potential to be a life saver, so I’m asking the people of Scotland to support this campaign – and a charity that needs us to give something back.”
St Andrew’s Aid was established in 1882 and since volunteers have tended to casualties up and down Scotland. Events they attend include football matches, music events and community gatherings. They were in attendance at the Ibrox disaster in 1971 in which 66 people were killed and the Glasgow bin lorry crash in 2014.
Stuart Callison, chief executive of St Andrew’s First Aid, said: “The pandemic has delivered us a brutal blow. Without any events taking place or training courses to deliver, our income literally dried up overnight.
“As Scotland’s only dedicated first aid charity, we have a unique history that has woven us into the very fabric of the country. Without our volunteers on site, there could be no football matches, music concerts or community gatherings and our favourite food and drink festivals would be drastically restricted in size.
“I hope that the people of Scotland will get behind us and our incredible volunteers, so that we can still be around in another 140 years.”