A Sunderland family ripped apart by knife crime have supported the Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service (TWFRS) with scheme installing life-saving "bleed kits" in each of fire station across the area.
Connor Brown was stabbed to death in Sunderland in 2019. He was attacked on a night out with friends. Since that heartbreak, parents Tanya and Simon have been raising money for and then installing the vital bleed kits across the North East.
Their charity the Connor Brown Trust has made it a mission to ensure the kits - which can be used to treat catastrophic bleeding - are in place in as many buildings and community hubs as possible. If someone is stabbed, a member of the public can call 999 and be given the code to access a bleed kit which can then be used to provide emergency first aid.
TWFRS has now announced that, in partnership with Tanya and Simon, kits have been installed on the external walls of a number of stations, with more to follow. announced they have worked with Tanya and Simon to install the kits on the external walls of their stations.
So far, the first phase of the project has seen community fire stations in Farringdon, Marley Park, Rainton Bridge and Sunderland Central fitted with the kits .
Simon Brown said: "Knowing that we are doing this, it is us getting some positivity from the negativity. It warms the heart and we know we are doing something good in the community which is what we always intended on doing. The people of Sunderland and further afield, they were there for us in our darkest days, and this is us putting something back."
And Tanya added: "I'd like to think Connor was proud of us for doing what we are doing and that's enough for me. We can’t thank the fire service enough for their support of the Trust and their commitment to helping keep people across the region safe."
Senior fire service leaders have also paid tribute to the work of the Connor Brown Trust. Area manager for service delivery, Dave Leach, said "Hopefully these kits are never needed but if they are, they are in trusted safe locations. We have an almost identical kit on the station so if we aren’t at an incident we’d always encourage people to come to us for help.
“I want to thank Tanya and Simon for their tireless fundraising for the equipment and we are looking forward to our partnership going forward. I also want to thank our Watch Manager Andy Nelson who has been a champion for these kits in TWFRS; he has worked hard to make this a reality.
“Right now this is a pilot scheme in Sunderland but we are working with the Connor Brown Trust to fundraise and install the kits across our other 13 locations."
Like with access to community defibrillators, the bleed kits work by the ambulance service passing the access code on when talking to those in need on a 999 call. The call handlers are then able to talk a caller through what they need to do while the emergency services are on their way.
It comes after The Chronicle launched its Stop Knives Taking Lives campaign in February in response to a string of recent tragedies, which included three teenagers being stabbed to death in the space of just four months.
The Connor Brown Trust are fundraising to install bleed kits across TWFRS’s other 13 locations. You can find out more about their fundraising targets and the charity on their gofundme pages.
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