Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007-2013. Please give credit where credit is due.
Zero degrees at 8am. Blue skies. Foot-stamping cold.
Today, I would like to wish good luck to all my kind friends and colleagues at the Cannobio branch of the Italian Red Cross. This evening, after almost a year's study, they take the exam that qualifies them to answer medical emergencies of all kinds.
Cannobio, the Valle Cannobina and the whole area to the Swiss border, has no professional ambulance service. We rely on the volunteers of the Red Cross and the Mountain Rescue Service (often the same people) for medical emergency cover. Last year the call went out for new volunteers - the service was so stretched that it had come to the point that the Cannobio branch could no longer guarantee 24/7 service - at certain times emergency calls would have to be answered exclusively by ambulance crews from Verbania, 30 minutes away.
And if you're dying of a heart attack, 30 minutes is - literally - a lifetime.
If all of tonight's volunteers pass - and the exam is pretty exacting - the new blood will help to rejuvenate the service so that the Red Cross can continue to save lives in this area.
And I have to say, having studied the 'First Step' with this group earlier this year, I have no problem trusting my life to any one of them.
In bocca al lupo!
Zero degrees at 8am. Blue skies. Foot-stamping cold.
Today, I would like to wish good luck to all my kind friends and colleagues at the Cannobio branch of the Italian Red Cross. This evening, after almost a year's study, they take the exam that qualifies them to answer medical emergencies of all kinds.
Cannobio, the Valle Cannobina and the whole area to the Swiss border, has no professional ambulance service. We rely on the volunteers of the Red Cross and the Mountain Rescue Service (often the same people) for medical emergency cover. Last year the call went out for new volunteers - the service was so stretched that it had come to the point that the Cannobio branch could no longer guarantee 24/7 service - at certain times emergency calls would have to be answered exclusively by ambulance crews from Verbania, 30 minutes away.
And if you're dying of a heart attack, 30 minutes is - literally - a lifetime.
If all of tonight's volunteers pass - and the exam is pretty exacting - the new blood will help to rejuvenate the service so that the Red Cross can continue to save lives in this area.
And I have to say, having studied the 'First Step' with this group earlier this year, I have no problem trusting my life to any one of them.
In bocca al lupo!
