GCS Alarms sponsor jackets for Kilcullen First Responders

Corey Delahunt, trainee EMT with the Calverstown First Responders group currently in formation, with Kilcullen First Responders Vivienne Wynne, Laura Begley, Ronan Collier, Phil O'Rourke, Kelly Maxwell, Eoin MacManus, and Louise Salczynski, and Greg Curran of GCS Alarms.

Smart new jackets have been sponsored for the Kilcullen Community First Responders group by local security company GCS Alarms, writes Brian Byrne. The new hi-viz clothing was handed over last evening during the group's training session in Scoil Bhride.

"With the winter now set in they will help keep our members safe when out on calls in the dark, and also keep us warm," says the Kilcullen group's Laura Begley. "It can get pretty cold out there when responding to an emergency this time of the year."

For Greg Curran of GCS, whose company has 25 years of experience in providing alarms to domestic and commercial customers throughout the Leinster area, helping with the jackets was a 'no-brainer'. "It's a case of our company giving back something to the community," he told the Diary. "All these people are volunteers, and I know about volunteering and raising sponsorship from my association with the Kilcullen Soccer Club, so when I heard the First Responders needed jackets, we didn't hesitate."

In addition to being high-visibility and warm, the new jackets are also very indicative that the wearer is on serious business, helping clear a way through people when coming to help someone who has been taken ill.

In other First Responder news, the defibrillator that was provided for public use outside the Centra store on Hillcrest has now been taken in charge by the Kilcullen First Responders, after having been fully serviced recently. It also has a notation that it is in memory of the late Bernard Berney. The unit was originally funded by a screening in 2019 of a video of The Quare Land performed three years earlier by Kilcullen Drama Group, which was Bernard's last performance as a member of the group. 

And, in an initiative that will add further to the number of the life-saving devices available publicly in the Kilcullen area, one is to be provided for the Kilcullen Town Hall dedicated to the memory of the late Fergal Sloan. Funds for this one were raised by the Kilcullen Gospel Choir.

There are currently up to ten active members of the Kilcullen Community First Responders, and five public access defibrillators as well as those portable units carried by a First Responder on a callout. A new responder group is also in formation for the Calverstown area.

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