Former Virgin Atlantic air hostess turned first aid business owner takes on peak challenge to raise money for Crawley school
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Lucy Soper, 38 from Horsted Keynes, was inspired by a family incident to start The First Aid Company, which offers first aid at work qualification.
Mrs Soper was made redundant at Virgin Airways last June due to Covid and decided to use her 14 years of experience as a cabin crew member to provide CPR training courses.
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Hide AdThe former Virgin Atlantic air hostess completed her challenge and with the help of Gatwick school students, raised the money needed to install the defibrillator.
Mrs Soper said: “I teach first aid to The Gatwick School in Crawley and from talking to them they didn’t have a defibrillator so I promised them that I would get them a defibrillator. When I looked at the map of Crawley I noticed that there is not a 24-hour public access defibrillator within Manor Royal. It was really important that I got the defibrillator to benefit the whole community, not just the school.
“So in January 2022 I signed up to do a triple challenge which consisted of climbing to the summit of Snowdon. I also cycled 17km around the lake shore of Llyn Padarn and passed the famous slate quarries of this area. My challenge ended by kayaking for 4km around Llyn Padarn.
“The Gatwick school helped me with their fundraising efforts. They raised over £300 doing a nonschool uniform day. I also got in touch with the local MP Henry Smith who put me on to Crawley Borough Council. They connected me to Geoff from Mears, who has kindly offered to install the defibrillator at the school for free. This really has been a community effort.
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Hide Ad“It’s so unbelievably important that children and adults know how to perform basic CPR and they have the confidence to go and grab a defibrillator.
“Having the confidence to start CPR on my mum, the paramedics being so quick with the defibrillator is what saved her life. I don’t want anybody else to be in my situation and not know what to do.”