A routine visit to a Telford tip turns into a lifesaving drama for a nursery teacher
A Telford nursery teacher has told how a run-of-the-mill visit to the tip ended up with her helping to save a man's life.
Beth Kilvert, 26, from Apley, stepped in to deliver CPR to a man in suspected cardiac arrest at the Halesfield Recycling Centre on Sunday - March 25.
Beth said she has spoken to the family of the man since the terrifying incident, who told her he is doing well and recovering in hospital.
It was only by chance that Beth had even attended the Halesfield depot, having originally planned, with her husband, to take their garden waste to the Hortonwood site.
Because it was busy they made the fateful decision to drive over to the other side of town to Halesfield instead.
Beth and several strangers responded to the emergency, managing to get the man's pulse back just as the ambulance service arrived.
The nursery teacher, who learned CPR as part of her training at work, said it showed the importance of training - and how anyone could step up and help save a person's life.
Beth said she and her husband Dan had been sat in the car at the centre as they heard a loud scream from a woman calling for help.
She said: "There was a woman who literally screamed at the top of her voice 'help'."
Beth described lots of people rushing over and said: "I said to my husband 'I might need to go' and he said 'let's just wait and see what has happened'."
She explained that the gravity of the situation became apparent when she heard a message on the staff radios.
She said: "The staff have radios on and all we heard was "no breath" and I just didn't think, I just ran out of the car and there was a gentleman who had started doing breaths.
"When I got there I said 'I am CPR trained, do we have an ambulance on call'."
Beth then asked if there was a defibrillator with others setting off to locate the nearest machine.
Beth began chest compressions and explained: "If someone was asking me how you do CPR I would be like, er, but in the moment everything just came back to me."
She added: "My husband is CPR trained as well and he had set a timer of two minutes and after two minutes we were going to swap.
"But thankfully after a minute and a half we managed to get a pulse and weak breath."
Team work at the tip
Beth praised the way all of those involved in helping worked to save the man's live, saying they had worked as a team to help restart the man's heart.
She said: "We started off all as strangers and something that was quite traumatic has brought us all together."
Beth said the experience had hit home in the days and hours following, but that hearing the man was recovering in hospital had been a huge boost.
She said: "It took a lot to process and the bit that has helped us is his family contacting us to say everything is okay.
Beth said the hospital had also told how the efforts had saved the man's life.
She said: "The hospital said it was incredible what we had done and thanks to us he's going to be okay."
Beth spoke of the emotional conversation with the man's wife, and urged everyone to take the opportunity to get CPR and first aid training, saying you never know when it will make a difference.
She said: "It is not necessarily about what I did, I want to show the importance to people - like this is a really incredible thing to have and you really can change someone's life and their family's lives by having the first aid training and the CPR training."
