Top award for hotel concierge who saved pensioner's life

20 August 2013
Top award for hotel concierge who saved pensioner's life

A Bath hotel concierge is to receive a top national life-saving honour after a life and death battle in the pouring rain on the pavement outside his hotel brought a pensioner back from the brink of death.

David Mead-Male, who was the concierge on duty at the Royal Crescent Hotel on the morning of 23 September last year, has been awarded a Royal Humane Society resuscitation certificate for saving the life of 67-year-old John Munday after he had collapsed outside the hotel.

Mr Munday, of Biggleswade, in Bedfordshire was visiting his daughter, Sarah Smith, and her family who live in the Bath area at the time.

He was walking in Royal Crescent with Sarah, her husband and his granddaughter, when he collapsed.

His daughter ran to the hotel seeking help and David Mead-Male, who was wearing his concierge's uniform rushed to the scene in the pouring rain. He found that Mr Munday was showing no signs of life.

Mrs Smith said: "The weather was atrocious and the rain was torrential. However, David went down on the pavement in the midst of it all and began administering cardiac pulmonary resuscitation. He kept it up for around ten minutes until an ambulance arrived.

"My father was in intensive care for five days after that and spent a further three weeks on a cardiac ward. He now has an implanted defibrillator.

"Without any shadow of doubt we owe his life to David. If he had not been on duty I dread to think what would have happened. David told us that there was no-one else around at the time who could administer CPR - and he'd only come on duty himself ten minutes earlier. No words can express how we feel about him."

In addition to the award he is to receive David also won the personal praise of Dick Wilkinson, secretary of the Royal Humane Society this morning.

Speaking as he announced the award Mr Wilkinson said: "Put quite simply, David was the right person in the right place at the right time. There was no-one else around at the hotel who had been trained in administering CPR. And if Mr Mead-Male had collapsed earlier David would not have been there either.

No date has yet been fixed for presentation of the award but it is expected to take place in the near future.

The roots of the Royal Humane Society stretch back more than two centuries. Its president is Princess Alexandra and it is the premier national body for honouring bravery in the saving of human life.

It was founded in 1774 by two of the day's eminent medical men, William Hawes and Thomas Cogan. Their primary motive was to promote techniques of resuscitation.

However, as it emerged that numerous people were prepared to put their own lives at risk to save others, the awards scheme evolved, and today a variety of awards are made depending on the bravery involved.

The Society also awards non health care professionals who perform a successful resuscitation. Since it was set up the Society has considered more than 86,000 cases and made more than 200,000 awards. The Society is a registered charity which receives no public funding and is dependent on voluntary donations.

TagsAwards and Hotels
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