Photo: first-aider Marlon Fendue receives flowers from Rob Nout/ Guy Ackermans
Fendeu, who is receptionist in Forum reacts modestly when Nout surprises her with the flowers and present this morning. ‘You shouldn’t have, it makes me shy.’ She says. ‘Helping was a must.’ Not only does Nout want to thank her. He also would like to see public recognition of the voluntary work of first-aiders such as Fendeu. In the nineties Nout had the same function in the Biotechnion. ‘I still remember how difficult it was to find people.’
It makes me shy
Marlon Fendeu
Last week Tuesday Nout was biking from Wageningen Hoog to the campus. He is retired since 2011, but still regularly performs small jobs for the old chair group Food Microbiology. That day he hit a separating bump on Bornsesteeg that separates the bikers going both ways. Two of these bumps are located on the road where the bus lane crosses. Nout fell off his bike and onto the pavement. Without hesitating Fendeu, who was passing by, came to the rescue.
In the fifteen minutes after the fall she talked and calmed the bleeding Nout. Meanwhile, she keeps bystanders at a distance and asks a student to call the ambulance service. ‘It all happened within seconds, ‘says Fendeu. ‘I kept calm and automatically did what I learned during my training sessions.’ Meanwhile Nout keeps blacking out and eventually the ambulance picks him up and brings him to the hospital. He is kept in the hospital for a night for observation purposes.
I kept calm and automatically did what I learned during my training sessions.
Marlon Fendeu
Fendeu is relieved that Nout has recovered. Last week when he fell, his head immediately swelled up. Yet he was lucky not left with broken bones or internal bleeding. He only has a few abrasions on his face, hands and feet. She suddenly has a different view of the compulsory first-aid training. ‘Sometimes you really don’t feel like going to the training. Sitting on your knees, working with the AED’, says Fendeu, ‘but with such an accident you immediately know what to do.’