As many people will be aware, Glasgow Road was closed off this week on the afternoon of Wednesday 15th November 2017. We understood at the time that a vehicle accident of a serious nature had taken place, but could not report further until police confirmed what had happened and advised family members.
Sadly, it is with a heavy heart we report that a man lost his life.
The man, who is not named here had been travelling along Glasgow Road westwards in his car during the early afternoon, when he had a suspected heart attack. Losing control of his car, his vehicle collided into a lamppost and wall, near Roselea Garage, not far from the junction of Stonefield Road.
Police arrived quickly to the scene, as did the ambulance services, but he was pronounced dead by paramedics a short time later.
Never something we want to report, our sincere sympathies go to his family and we’re sure you’ll all join us in thinking of them at this sad and difficult time.
Heroism & Bravery
Before we complete this post, there is one remarkable aspect to this sad story that came to our attention that cannot be ignored. A tale of incredible heroism and bravery. Efforts to save a fellow human being.
When the man crashed, two Blantyre women, unknown to each other both separately and immediately responded. Twenty two year old Rebecca Blackburn ran over and assisted removing the man from the car, getting a response from him. The police then arrived. Rebecca was joined by passer by, off-duty staff nurse Julie McCallum. For 10 minutes both Rebecca and Julie performed CPR on the older gentleman until the emergency services arrived and took over.
As others stood helplessly near the man, both Rebecca and Julie had bravely leapt into action in a focused and combined effort to try to save his life.
We tracked the Blantyre ladies down who later told us, “Please pass on condolences to the man’s family.“
Rebecca told us, “Please let them know I tried my hardest. I’m very saddened by it all. It only really hit me the day after. Maybe it was in some way a comfort to him just by being there and trying to help and that he wasn’t alone somewhere.”
Julie added, ” I’m a staff nurse in Hairmyres Hospital so instinct kicked in. When I saw his condition when driving by, I got out to help. He was still breathing when I arrived but due to the heart attack, very quickly stopped so we started immediately doing cpr. Myself and the other girl (Rebecca) continued to help the paramedics until he was in back of ambulance. The paramedics battled hard to save him too. I did not hear until afterwards that he had passed away. My thoughts are with the gentlemans family x”
Whilst not the outcome anybody would ever have wanted, and not distracting from the fact that a man has tragically lost his life, we thought it prudent to mention the remarkable bravery of both Rebecca and Julie on clearly was a difficult and urgent situation. We’re in awe of the kindness of human spirit, compassion and their actions.
