A Gateshead woman has been hailed a local hero after she saved the lives of two siblings in the space of four years.
Just before Christmas four years ago, Angela Rowe performed CPR on a young boy who suffered a cardiac arrest while using the gym at Dunston Activity Centre, saving his life. Coincidentally, Angela, who manages the centre, repeated the feat for a second time a week ago, on this occasion saving the life of the boy’s sister.
She detailed the first occasion she saved the life of the young boy who suffered a cardiac arrest while using the gym at the centre.
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"Approximately four years ago, I had swapped a shift with somebody and I wasn't meant to be on duty that night,” she revealed.
“About an hour into being at work a gentleman came out of the gym to tell me that there was a young lad on one of the machines who didn’t look very well. I grabbed the phone and by the time I got over to him, he was on the floor and had stopped breathing.
“I immediately got somebody to ring for an ambulance and while they did that I started to perform CPR. I continued to perform CPR until the ambulance arrived.
“We did get the defibrillator machine out ready to use but the ambulance then arrived so I continued to perform CPR.”
Four years later, Angela was again on hand to save the life of a young girl who she would later find out was the sister of the boy she had saved years earlier.
“The second time, I was on duty and I hadn’t long opened up that morning. There was a bit of a commotion outside and a young lady ran into the centre crying and looking very distraught saying there was a girl outside who wasn’t breathing,” she explained.
“She told me that she thought the girl had suffered a cardiac arrest as the girl herself had told her that. The girl fell to the ground and hit her head and her mouth was bleeding. There was quite a lot of blood.
“She wasn’t breathing and so I put her into the recovery position. I then found she had no pulse and started CPR. From there we got the defibrillator and started shocking her.”
She added: “At the time you don’t really think, you just focus on what you need to do.”
Paramedics later told her that she had done everything correctly and her actions had saved the girl's life.
Angela first found that the two people she saved were siblings after their grandfather came in to pick up his granddaughter's glasses following the incident.
She said: “He came in during the afternoon and said- ‘I can’t believe this has happened to my second grandchild’.”
Angela then confirmed to him that it was her that saved both of the gentleman’s grandchildren.
“I gave him a cuddle and he was crying. We both had a few tears. He kept saying ‘thank you’ but I didn’t do it for the thanks, I did it just to know she was alright.”
In the time that has followed, Angela has been swamped with goodwill messages following her heroic acts. She spoke of her gratitude towards the wider community for their support, saying: “I just want to thank the community in Dunston, they keep us running.
“We are a very close knit community- there were a lot of people helping that day and I’d like to thank all of them for their continued support. I’ve had a lot of nice comments on Facebook and I really do appreciate that.”
For Angela, however, the main thing is that the young girl was saved. She explained that her heroics came naturally and that she simply followed her training and instincts to ensure she gave her the best possible chance of survival.
“At the moment, I don’t know how the little girl is but I did hear that same afternoon that I’d done everything right and managed to save her life. At that point it was time to breathe in.
“I think you go into fight or flight mode. I’ve dealt with looking after my parents all my life and bridging up three children on my own so I think I can just go into that mode and do what I need to. You have to- at the end of the day you’re saving somebody’s life potentially.
“All I could think afterwards was ‘did I do everything right?’. So it was a relief to know we’d done all we could for the young girl.”
She is now looking to raise awareness of the importance of defibrillator equipment in public spaces such as the Dunston Activity Centre and revealed that they will be looking to raise funds for more life-saving equipment going forward.
She said: “Here at the Dunston Activity Centre, health and safety is our main priority.
“One of the main reasons I’d like to speak out about this is because of how important it is that, firstly, people are aware that there is a defibrillator here.
“We’re hoping to start a donation bucket to raise funds for equipment as it is just so important.
“They are life-saving and a lot of lives could be saved in the future through these defibrillators, especially through people who have full first aid training.
All staff at the Dunston Activity Centre are first-aid trained and Angela is quick to stress the importance of such training to ensure the safety of the wider community.
She added: “I think it’s great that schools are teaching pupils about the basics of first aid as it’s vital that we have people who can even do the basics of getting someone into the recovery position. It makes a massive difference in that kind of situation.”
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