On 7th and 8th of February 2009 cadets and staff from our squadron helped out at the local annual radio rally. Arriving at the Didcot leisure centre at 4:00pm on the Saturday all the cadets were looking forward to helping out in the community. We spent a few hours helping to set up the layout needed for the following day; we set up the main hall, the dance studio and 2 squash courts in our quickest time yet. All of the cadets were motivated and then rewarded at the end with doughnuts and muffins .

We arrived on the Sunday at 8:15am and helped the local trades people carry their equipment to their stalls. Some of the cadets were also helping to set up the car parks and place posters and signs in their correct places. At 10:00am cars started to arrive and we managed to fill our first car park in approximately 15 minutes, we moved to our second car park which we filled in approximately 30 minutes. Once both the car parks were full we had fun trying to find parking for the rest of the visitors, and we struggled to park some of the cars on grass areas; this wasn't easy due to the weather conditions. After we managed to park as many cars as we possibly could we were then told we could go  to lunch; this was free as a reward for the mornings work. During lunch one of our corporals jumped into to action by helping to administer first aid to a gentleman who had collapsed. Corporal Edwards was very quick to help out and used his knowledge from a first aid course to the best of his abilities; this probably helped to save the gentleman’s life. Everybody was thankful for his skill and quick thinking and he deserves nothing but praise for the way he behaved.

Once we finished our lunch, we then decided to go to the school field behind the leisure centre and do some team building exercises. We all had a lot of fun playing in the snow !

Later in the day we then helped pack up all of the equipment when all of the traders were finished. While we were waiting for the lorry to arrive we had a game of football in the leisure centre and managed to tire ourselves even more. We finished packing all of the equipment away and waited to be told we could all go home. All of the cadets worked extremely hard, it was great fun, and it was nice to hear the public making good comments about us. It is a great weekend to take part in.

The Harwell Radio Rally is held at the Didcot Leisure Centre once a year, men and women of all ages and from different parts of the country come to by or sell different parts of radios.

Everything was going well up to lunch time, the cadets and I were having lunch up stairs, suddenly a man appeared out of the male toilets and started shouting for help and saying someone’s collapsed , everyone went silent, I got up as quick as I could and went over to him, before he could go into any more detail I saw a man on the floor leaning against a radiator, remembering what I had learnt on a recent first aid course, I saw there was no danger so I went over to him.

I checked his responses and as I was doing this another first aider appeared, I explained to her what I was told by eye witness, then we decided it was best to call an ambulance, whilst she was on the phone to the emergency services I was reassuring the man as he was still conscious, they told us to put him in the recovery position.

After we had put him in the recovery position, we checked his airways and realised that he wasn't breathing, so quickly and calmly we turned him onto his back, we were about to start CPR when he started to breath again, we put him back into the recovery position and after doing this for a second time the paramedics arrived.

We explained what information we had to them about the man but thankfully the mans best friend was there to fill in his medical details, although the situation lasted about 20 - 30 minutes it felt like 3 hours.  As the paramedics were leaving one of them said that he may have had a stroke. Following the incident I went back to my duties.

If anyone ever gets the chance to do first aid course, I highly recommend going on it as you never know when you may have to use first aid.