On Monday at 8.20am, a man camping at the Ocean View Reserve in Brighton was rushed to Dunedin Hospital after he stopped breathing following a fall from his van.
A series of lucky breaks meant he did not die at the scene.
By chance, a German tourist, who is a fire and ambulance first responder in her home country, quickly found him and jumped into action.
By another stroke of luck, two road policing officers, Constable Peyton Fields and road policing Senior Constable Andy Camp, were up the road with an automated external defibrillator (AED).
After the three jumped into lifesaving action, along came four Brighton firefighters who had not yet left the township for the work day.
Brighton Volunteer Fire Brigade Senior Firefighter Daryl Hanna said when they arrived on scene, they saw police and the tourist doing a "sterling job", but the officer was starting to look "buggered" after doing compressions for so long.
The tourist was operating the AED and doing airway management, he said.
"CPR is really hard work — so we tapped the shoulder of the police officer and relieved him."
Seven minutes after the call for help was sent, the volunteer firefighters were on the scene.
"I stepped in to do compressions, and then we as medical first responders, took over the medical side of things until an ambulance got there," SF Hanna said.
The Brighton Fire Brigade were often the first on the scene for the community’s medical emergencies, as the nearest ambulances were in Mosgiel or South Dunedin.
Between 60 to 70% of the brigades call-outs were medical, he said.
There were many brigades around Dunedin who acted as medical first responders due to the amount of time it could be before an ambulance could get into the community.
They were often first on the scene, and SF Hanna said they could be waiting up to an hour sometimes in less urgent cases for an ambulance to arrive.
"It’s all based on the triaging of their calls, because they are certainly under pressure with their numbers as well.
"But they come out pretty much straight away to those ones under urgency."
