An amazing meeting at a charity awards ceremony has seen a Christian paramedic reunited with a woman whose life he saved after she tried to commit suicide.
Kevan Horner, a paramedic in a fast response vehicle, was called to the home of Paula Walton after a 999 call. Overwhelmed by debt and drink, she had taken a deadly cocktail of drugs and alcohol. Kev was able to keep her alive until an ambulance arrived and took her to hospital, where she was stabilised and eventually discharged.
Reflecting on the event for debt counselling charity Christians Against Poverty (CAP), he says she would probably have died if he hadn't been there. And, "It would have been even worse because one of her children would have found her and would have had to deal with finding their mum dead."
Anyone who's a parent, he says, would think "that's not right. But she's so, so desperate she thinks they're better off without her."
He says: "The last I saw of her, she was being wheeled off in an ambulance with the crew trying hard to avoid the vomit."
Astonishingly, he was to see her again in very different circumstances. After her brush with death Paula was contacted by CAP, which helped her bring her finances under control. A life that had been destructive and damaged almost beyond repair was turned round.
As Paula says: "I didn't want to live. In my drink and in my debt there was nothing to eat. Breakfast was biscuits." She says she was "disconnected from my kids", her husband had left her and she spent her time alone in her bedroom. "I carried on drinking, I couldn't see a way out," she says.
But CAP's support helped her become debt and alcohol free. She has not taken a drink for a year. She was baptised on Easter Sunday and says she is now "full of the Holy Spirit" and has "peace of mind". "I feel quite content. Without a debt on my head I can live life and I can breathe again."
And it was at a CAP awards ceremony, where clients and volunteers are recognised for what they have achieved, that Paula and Kev met again. Kev says: "On came Paula, and as soon as her picture came on the screen, I said to my wife, 'I know her. I treated her, I was the paramedic that treated her.'" And now, "She's happy, she's smiling, she's bright, she's bubbly, she's not an alcoholic, she's completely clear of that, she's given her life to God. She's overcome so much, she's sorted out her debt and is even free of debt, all in 18 months.
"You just think, wow. I saw you a year and a half ago and look at you now, you are a completely different person. I recognise the face but I don't recognise the person."
Both of them pay tribute to CAP for its work. As Kev says: "So many people are in so much debt and so much trouble that they do think about killing themselves. They don't just pretend or say, 'Oh yeah, I felt like it,' they actually do it. CAP can get there and break into that situation for them and make a difference, and do like they did with Paula, just completely turn their life around."
