Positivity: Praise for Quick-Thinking Paper Boy After Woman Collapses
11:00 - 10 May 2008
A herald Express paper boy has been praised after he spotted an elderly customer collapsed and called an ambulance.Ambulance chiefs say the quick-thinking schoolboy’s prompt actions may have saved the life of the 90-year-old woman in Brixham.
Churston Ferrers Grammar School boy Jordan Higham spotted the woman through the window of her home in Copythorne Road in a collapsed state.
The 16-year-old schoolboy tried knocking on the window to see if he could gain her attention.
She moved slightly, but was not able to respond, so he raised the alarm with neighbours.
They immediately rang for an ambulance crew who rushed the patient, as yet unnamed, to Torbay Hospital with a suspected stroke.
An ambulance spokeswoman said: “The young lad did very well to pick up on what had happened.
“If he had not intervened the scenario could have been very different. He is to be commended for his quick and decisive actions.”
She added that the woman was later said to be ’stable’.
Jordan was delivering Heralds for local newsagents Northfield News.
He explained that he had spotted the lady in her chair purely by chance as he turned away after delivering the paper.
“If I had turned the other way I would not have seen her,” he said.
He telephoned his boss for advice, and when the elderly woman responded when he knocked in the window he went to get some help from neighbours.
“It was just chance I saw her. I did think she might be dead so I was glad when she responded to my knocking on the window,” he said.
Northfield News proprietor Taya Hempseed said: “He’s a great lad with a great attitude. He’s very bright and aware, and we’re proud that his quick-thinking has saved the lady.”
Jordan’s dad, Steve, who lives in The Close, Brixham, said of Thursday morning’s incident: “It was the day of Jordan’s French oral GCSE exam. It didn’t put him off too much because he thinks he did quite well. …..
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