First-aider to be given award of highest order
A first aider who has treated casualties from those suffering a cardiac arrest to a jouster who broke his collarbone after falling from a horse is to be awarded with a royal honour. Dr Brian Caswell of Congleton trained as a community first responder and later joined St John Ambulance to teach others how to become life-savers. Next month the 72-year-old retired teacher will head to London where he will be admitted into the Order of St John, the only working Order of chivalry, for his work in the community and for training others in first aid.
He was first trained by the Red Cross in basic first aid in 1965, followed later in the advanced version for civil defence during the Cold War. It was in 2002 that he became a community first responder with North West Ambulance, heading out to medical emergencies in his own vehicle to give sometimes lifesaving treatment to a casualty before paramedics arrived at the scene. A year later, the father-of-two joined St John Ambulance and continued his training role with the responders as well as training the public via the Heartstart scheme on behalf of the British Heart Foundation and for the Sudden Death Syndrome Charity, and some Girl Guide and Air Training Corps Training too.
Dr Caswell described his admission to the Order as "entirely unexpected but a great honour to have my voluntary work in the community recognised". He added: "I was surprised: you never find out who puts your name forward to the powers that be for this honour." Dr Caswell said that the late Queen had been due to give her consent for the royal signature to grant him the Order just a day before she died in September last year. He will be admitted into the Order of St John on Wednesday, 17th May, at The Priory Church of the Order of St John in Clerkenwell. It had been postponed from last month because of the rail strike. With him at the ceremony will be wife Christiana.
Dr Caswell is now chair of the South Cheshire Branch of the St John Ambulance Fellowship. He was previously an operational St John Ambulance member as well as unit and regional trainer and assessor. Although he was never called into lifesaving duties with St John Ambulance he did as a responder several times. Dr Caswell said: "My best duties in St John Ambulance were horse events. These included dealing with spinal injuries and fractures caused during jumping competitions. "As a community first responder I often had to treat heart attack patients and sometimes use a defibrillator. But my most dramatic and challenging experience was having to call in the air ambulance to help me deal with a person who had been thrown by a large horse on a fairly remote forest track at Somerford and who had sustained a serious thigh fracture."
Casualties
Dr Caswell recalled some of the other casualties he went out to help over the years. One was a woman who, during a summer parade in Congleton, damaged her varicose vein on the corner of a raised brick flower bed as she made her way to the park, "when there was a lot of bleeding", he recalled. During a fun day dog show one summer he ended up treating a dog, which had bitten off the ear of another. "I refused to complete a patient report for on this particular occasion!" Dr Caswell joked. He was called to give first aid during a joust in the Peak District. One of the combatants had been hit on his shield, fallen of his horse and sustained "the most serious broken collar bone that I had ever seen". He remembered how by the time the air ambulance had arrived the casualty had emptied a complete cylinder of Entonox (laughing gas) to quell the pain and was "in complete hysterics".
He recalled another incident: "This involved someone who had accidentally removed the end of her finger in a liquidiser on a Sunday afternoon, and her partner then fainting because of the blood. I had not one but two casualties!" He said: "A more interesting incident was when I was sent to a child with croup. One of our children had had this so I immediately recognised the barking seal sound. "At that time, not now, the initial treatment was to ask the parents to take the child into the bathroom and run the hot water to create lots of steam. The only problem was that when I followed them in, my glasses steamed up so I couldn't even see the patient report form that I was trying to complete."
Dr Caswell lectured and taught science, electronics and computing/IT for about 35 years mostly to sixth form students, including at Eaton Bank High School in Congleton and the Kings School in Macclesfield, where he was the medic during skiing trips. He is a member of Trinity Methodist Church in Congleton, where he has recently been providing training workshops to teach people CPR and how to use a defibrillator, after one of the publicly accessible life-saving devices was installed at the church.
The Order's official title is The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem and is an Order of Chivalry of the Crown. It honours individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the work of St John. It has its roots in a hospital founded in Jerusalem in the 11th century.
[Article published in the Congleton Chronicle early in 2023. Republished with permission]