Hundreds of hours volunteered

Sunday 12 May 2019

St John Ambulance has revealed how busy its staff and volunteers were while most of the island were having fun, with 27 call outs on Liberation Day alone.

The St John Emergency Ambulance Service experienced "a busy period of demand" with those 27 calls between midnight on Wednesday 8 and midnight on Thursday 9 May.

The majority of the calls were for medical cases and falls, and not related to the Liberation Day events, but at one point extra off-duty staff had to be called in to maintain resilience. A spokesman for the Service said that is "normal procedure at times of high demand".

In addition to the full time clinicians on duty with the emergency ambulance service more than twenty St John volunteers were also on duty in St Peter Port providing medical cover for islanders celebrating Liberation Day in town.

Above: St John Ambulance released a series of stats for Liberation Day. All of the above relates purely to volunteers giving up their time. 

The ambulance service had also experienced a higher than average number of calls over the May Bank Holiday weekend, last weekend, with additional staff allocated to help cover public events then too.

Chief Ambulance Officer Mark Mapp praised those who gave up their time to serve the public - both the paid staff and volunteers.

“I am grateful to the staff who were working and away from their families over the bank holiday weekend and on Liberation Day. We have a long established contingencies to cope in these busy periods and I’d also like to thank the off-duty staff who responded to the call to return to work.”