A dream cottage almost became a nightmare when an ambulance crew struggled to find the remote country hideaway where a man was lying dangerously ill.
John Lawson had not long moved to the cottage which cannot be seen from the main A5 road near Corwen, when son Tony, 27, a diabetic, fell into a coma and could not be roused.
Now John says he is a “100%” convert to rural regeneration agency Cadwyn Clwyd’s campaign to provide signs for remote properties to ensure emergency services can find them in a hurry.
The scheme, christened 999 Where are you?, is part of Cadwyn Clwyd’s £1 million Rural Services Project, which is financed as part of the Rural Development Plan for Wales 2007-2013 through the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the Welsh Assembly Government.
Project Officer Helen Roberts said: “This shows just how crucial it can be to have clear and proper signage on rural properties.
“It can literally be a matter of life and death but at many remote rural homes signs are broken or overgrown which makes it very difficult for our emergency services.”
John and partner Karen Henry, and son Tony Lawson moved from the Wirral to the cottage Y Wern, at Llidiart y Parc near Corwen and, along with Tony’s girlfriend Karen Button, were hosting a New Year’s Eve party for friends and family.
But Tony, who is diabetic and partially blind, went to rest about 8pm but was in danger of not waking up.
“We had all the family here. It’s normal for Tony to go for a nap but when his girlfriend went to check on him she called me and said she could not get a response. Normally I can deal with it and get his insulin but when he’s asleep like this, he was totally gone.
“I got through to the paramedics and told them I lived off the A5, about 200-250m from the road and they would have to come in via a small car park and through a five-bar gate.
“We’ve got no signs on the gate to say the cottage is here so I went up to the main road to wait for the ambulance. I saw the blue light coming and then it went straight past me.
“Fortunately the driver realised it was me waving at him and turned around and came back. If there had been a sign up they would have known straight away so now I’m really behind this campaign of Cadwyn Clwyd to put up these signs at remote properties.
“The cottage is detached and you have to come down a path over a footbridge over the stream. In the daytime you cannot see it from the road and at night there’s no chance.
“The paramedics were brilliant and he came out of it really quickly. Of course, when he came around he wondered what all the fuss was about.”
Tony eventually went for a check up with his own doctor and got the all clear.
“It was pretty scary,” said John, “if we had had a sign here this would not have happened.”
John, a plasterer, moved from the Wirral to Corwen because he had an increasing amount of work in the Wrexham area and knew the Corwen area because he is a keen fisherman.
Welsh Ambulance Service first responder Tomos Hughes has been a key part of the campaign to put remote properties on the map and help save lives and tours North Wales looking for suitable residents to help.
By sheer coincidence two days after the drama he knocked on John Lawson’s door to see if he could interest him in the scheme.
“John thought at first that I had called as a result of the ambulance service being called to his home to deal with Tony, but actually it was just sheer coincidence and of course he was all for it.
“The scheme has gone very, very well and over the past two years we must have put up signage at about 1,500 properties,” he said.
Anyone interested in Cadwyn Clwyd’s 999 Where Are You? Project, which still has two months left to run for applications for new signage, can contact Helen Roberts on 01824 705802 or e-mail [email protected]
