Date published: November 12, 2021
Ian Ruddock – our 2021 everyday hero award winner
When we created the everyday hero award for pandemic response, our originally idea was that it could be used to say thank you to people who had helped each other in small, but meaningful ways during the pandemic. But when the judges heard about what Ian had done, there was one standout winner!
One evening, as the household were preparing to go to bed, Ian heard a noise from downstairs and when to investigate. What he discovered was that his Shared Lives carer, Sandra, had collapsed and was lying at the bottom of the stairs. Without panicking or pausing, Ian immediately called Sandra’s brother for help, and he called the ambulance which arrived within minutes.
Sandra doesn’t remember any of this, in fact the first thing she remembers is waking up in hospital to be told that she’d had a bleed on the brain, that she’d been in a coma for five and a half weeks, and that the person who called for help so quickly had almost certainly saved her life.
The next few weeks were difficult for everyone, since the pandemic meant that Sandra couldn’t have visitors in the hospital. But thanks to Ian’s quick thinking response, she has been able to make a full recovery and is back home, and back as the Shared Lives carer to her own guardian angel.
We’re not the only people who think what he did was amazing. Ian even made it into the local paper with a story all about his heroism in the Liverpool Echo.
