Dublin Fire Brigade station manager Dave Connolly and his colleagues were on their way to Malaga airport in Spain when they came across a critically injured motorcyclist who just moments before had been involved in a crash.
The group of six firefighters quickly switched to professional mode, leaping into action to block off the road and create a safe space for them to work with the casualty. Speaking to BBC News NI, Mr Connolly said, “Immediately we just switched into being professional firefighters and paramedics,” adding that he assumed they were on the scene around 60 seconds after the accident had taken place. This quick arrival on the scene could be a life-saving piece of serendipity for the rider, as Mr Connolly explained how in the initial moments after a crash, every second really does count.
“Unless there's an intervention within one or two minutes, you're going into respiratory arrest and shortly after that cardiac arrest,” he said. “So that patient is possibly the luckiest man in the fact we happened to be driving around at that time - because he wouldn't have survived if they had waited for the ambulance. He is still seriously ill but recovering in ICU and we wish him a speedy recovery.”
Looking back on the incident, Mr Connolly quipped that he had a theory on why the rider was so lucky that the experienced crew just happened to be passing him at that time. “There must be Irish in that patient's family because he is just so lucky that we happened to be going past when it happened,” he said.
The BBC also reports that the group of six made it to the airport and boarded the plane home by the ‘skin of their teeth’.
