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The local lad in the GAA club, a woman you salute in the village or someone you went to school with; someday that could be the person that makes all the difference, the person that saves your life.
This was the reality for Jim O’Kelly from Killavullen, Co Cork, recently when local responder Edward Walsh received an emergency alert.
Easter Sunday started out as normal for Jim, 68, who is retired from teaching.
“The only thing that was out of the ordinary was that for a week or two, I was getting terrible indigestion and heartburn. My wife Hilary is a great cook and I was looking forward to our Easter dinner, but shortly after, that indigestion started up again.
But Hilary knew something wasn’t right.
“He started to get very uncomfortable and the colour on him was shocking,” she says. When Jim said he had a tightness in his chest and a pain in his arm, Hilary acted straight away and called 999.
“The woman on the other end of the phone was excellent, and helped me to navigate the situation but, I’ll be honest, I was there on my own with Jim and I was very frightened,” she says.
About 20 minutes away, Edward Walsh, emergency medical technician and volunteer with CRITICAL, was having a relaxing Easter Sunday when he received an alert about a medical emergency in Killavullen.
“When I put in the Eircode, I realised it was the O’Kelly family. I’ve known Jim’s daughter Lisa for years, and I would have often been at the house chatting to Jim and Hilary. I got in the car straight away.
Ed is a volunteer with CRITICAL, an emergency response unit that operates in 21 counties and often in rural areas. Previously, he had worked in the ambulance, and air ambulance service. “As I have a rapid response vehicle with lights, I was able to get there in just under 20 minutes from my house in Ballyhass Lakes.”
White as a ghost
When Ed arrived on the scene, Hilary met him at the door. “I could see from her face that she was very worried. When I went down to the bedroom, I met Jim looking as white as a ghost, sweating percussively with his hand across his chest. “These were textbook symptoms that he was having a heart attack.”
Jim says, “At that stage, my daughter Lisa had arrived and our neighbours had gone to the community hall to get the defibrillator. When I saw our neighbour Niamh walk in with that, I said to them, ‘I’ll never live this down if it’s just indigestion’.”
Behind the humour though, Jim was very worried. Quietly he says, “Honestly, I thought I was going to die. I thought, one bang here and I’ll be gone.” But what frightened him most was leaving Hilary and Lisa in this traumatic way.
In 2017, Jim and Hilary’s eldest daughter Kate passed away, aged 31. Kate had Friedreich’s ataxia, a long illness that she bore very bravely and she died at home surrounded by her family.
Jim says that was the moment he was thinking of. “I was sitting up in the bed, looking at Hilary and Lisa, sitting in the same place nearly as they were when Kate died, and I just thought I cannot leave my wife and daughter like this. It would be too much for them, too much heartbreak in one lifetime.”
When Ed arrived though, the whole situation changed. He brought a sense of calm.
Ed continues, “Right away, I knew I needed Jim to listen to me, to understand that the more he was anxious, the more pressure he was putting on his heart. When we got his breathing under control, I did an ECG reading which confirmed he was having a massive heart attack and there was a blockage in his right coronary artery. Immediately, I alerted the ambulance service to the severity of the case. Then I gave Jim aspirin to thin the blood and ease the flow within his heart. I also prepared the defibrillator pads so that if Jim did lose consciousness, I was ready to administer a shock to the patient.”
When the ambulance crew arrived, Ed showed them the ECG reading. Without delay, they started administering an IV drip to ease the pain and he was on a stretcher and into the ambulance within minutes.
Jim says, “From the time Hilary made that 999 phone call until I was on a table in the Cath Lab in the CUH was less than 90 minutes. They confirmed that I had a 100% blockage and a stent was inserted. Given the severity of the situation, there could have been long-term damage to my heart but because the team worked so fast, I am back to good health.
“I truly believe that if Ed hadn’t been there that night, I would have died. The man saved my life. He did everything right in the moment and I later learned that as Ed alerted the control unit of the severity of my case, the ambulance prioritised the call. We live in a rural village and the ambulance service is under pressure. That’s why having CRITICAL volunteers on the ground is so important, it really is lifesaving.”
Ed says, “As I was driving home again, I got a call from the crew to confirm that Jim was now in the CUH. I rang Lisa immediately, and I’ll never forget the relief in her voice. ‘That’s all I wanted to hear,’ she said.
“The next morning, she sent me a picture of Jim in the hospital giving me the thumbs up, and I thought in that moment, “This is exactly why I do what I do.’
“You couldn’t take the smile off my face, and now I slag Jim that he is back to himself, giving out to everyone as usual,” he says with a laugh.
Waiting times
The ambulance service in Ireland is under pressure. In Q1 of 2025, 72% of purple life-threatening cases were met within 19 minutes. Purple cases are life-threatening cardiac or respiratory-arrest cases, in which every moment matters. However, 28% of cases went beyond that target.
CRITICAL is supporting patients, and the health service, to deliver a successful outcome, like in Jim’s case. Strategically positioned within local areas, it allows volunteers to quickly attend emergency calls and provide essential care during the crucial early minutes before the arrival of the ambulance crew.
David Tighe, CEO of CRITICAL says, “The charity was founded in 2009, with an air ambulance launched in 2019.
“We are coordinating hubs of volunteers across community areas to ensure a trained first responder will get to a call in a matter of minutes, assessing the situation and working with the national ambulance service to save lives. Currently, we have 162 volunteer responders in 21 counties.”
In the last year, CRITICAL has had 1,308 responses, and already this year it has had a 75% increase compared to the same period last year.
However, with no Government funding or support, it is 100% reliant on public donations.
To give some perspective on the costs, David outlines that a life-saving kit bag costs €1,500. To set up a Community First Responder unit, which normally consists of 10 volunteers in a community, costs €15,000.
The charity is also working towards having more fully qualified doctors on the road as medical responders. However, to purchase and fully stock their vehicles with emergency supplies costs €150,000.
Currently, there are 11 of these volunteer doctors around the country. This enables them to perform medical treatment at the scene instead of waiting to get a patient to a hospital that, according to David, “could be over an hour away, which makes a difference with farm accidents too”.
David says the Government needs to hear stories like Jim’s to really understand the difference the charity is making. He says, “I have been trying to get a meeting with the Minister for Health for a number of months, unsuccessfully. We need support and are asking for specific direct Government funding to sustain and grow our services in the future.”
If you are interested in getting involved with CRITICAL, see criticalcharity.ie
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