Income hammered this year

A bid to raise £500,000 has been launched by St Andrews First Aid as the charity lost all its regular income this year due to the pandemic.  

The 138-year old charity is in desperate need of cash to support its activities which treat casualties up and down Scotland. Events they attend include football matches, music events and community gatherings. They were in attendance at the Ibrox disaster in 1971 in which 66 people were killed and the Glasgow bin lorry crash in 2014.

Stuart Callison, chief executive of St Andrew’s First Aid, said: “The pandemic has delivered us a brutal blow. Without any events taking place or training courses to deliver, our income literally dried up overnight.

https://94e5bc6a5d74c80e6b1121cff54fd4c5.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html “As Scotland’s only dedicated first aid charity, we have a unique history that has woven us into the very fabric of the country. Without our volunteers on site, there could be no football matches, music concerts or community gatherings and our favourite food and drink festivals would be drastically restricted in size.

“I hope that the people of Scotland will get behind us and our incredible volunteers, so that we can still be around in another 140 years.”

The campaign will be fronted by volunteer, Liz Seymour, from Hamilton who joined the charity 18-years-ago. Ms Seymour lost her own son, Mark, in 2017 to a suspected cardiac arrest when he was 34-years-old. Despite her best efforts to revive him with CPR, Ms Seymour was unable to save his life.

Four months later, on her first outing with St Andrew’s First Aid since the death of her son, she found herself again performing CPR. A spectator at a football match had suffered a cardiac arrest.

People who would like to donate can text SAFA to 70660 to donate £10 or visit https://www.firstaid.org.uk/donate.