The Hubbard family got to meet the firefighter that helped them on a chance visit to New Cross station
(Picture: London Fire Brigade)A London woman says she will be “forever grateful” to firefighters that helped her dying mother, after she got to thank them in a chance reunion at a London fire station.
Great-grandmother Cathy Black, 73, from Southwark, fell ill on March 23, 2020, the day the UK went into its first national lockdown.
Her daughter, Jodie Hubbard, called for an ambulance but due to the high number of calls she struggled to get through to 999. She was told there would be a wait but an ambulance was coming.
A while later she noticed blue lights flashing outside her home and went to see if it was the ambulance.
Instead, it was the London Fire Brigade (LFB), who by chance had been attending a routine check at a school close by. She asked for their help and they gave Mrs Black medical assistance but she was pronounced dead at the scene.
More than 18 months later, her 11-year-old son Ollie was invited to New Cross fire station to present a poster he had made about fire safety awareness to the firefighters working on shift that day.
Not knowing the names of the firefighters who had helped, Mrs Hubbard brought a card and a gift to say thank you to the LFB.
As she was recounting the story of what happened, the “penny dropped” as she realised she was talking to the firefighter that had helped her mum.
Mrs Hubbard said: “Just knowing that those firefighters were there, and I could thank them for the support they gave me and my whole family, I’ll always been grateful for that.
“We didn’t expect the fire brigade to be as wonderful as they were that night.”
Mrs Hubbard said her mother, who she described as a someone who “liked to have a laugh and a joke,” had been watching Boris Johnson give his lockdown speech when she suddenly became very ill.
Within half an hour, “it went all downhill” and she was unable to speak.
By the time Mrs Hubbard had managed to flag down the firefighters, her mother had died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which is a lung condition that causes breathing difficulties.
“They did try and resuscitate her but we decided as a family not to continue with that, because of how serious it was. She had already passed,” she told the Standard.
“We know now she couldn’t be saved, but just having that support that they gave us knowing there was someone of a professional capacity who could take over our panic, we will be forever grateful for that.”
Stewart Brockman, who works at New Cross fire station and tried to save Mrs Black, said: “I’d not long been in the job, that’s why this one sticks with me.
“Jodie had brought a really nice card and some chocolates to say thank you to the fire brigade in general.
“The chances of her catching the fire engine that were actually in attendance is quite slim. But she started relaying the story and I was thinking, ‘this is ringing a lot of bells. I know this story’.”
Mrs Hubbard added: “I just needed to say thank you and let them know that support meant the world to us as a family.”
