VOLUNTEER life savers have attended thousands of emergency call outs over the last eight years.

The Harwich and District Community First Responders have attended 2400 calls since the group was formed in 2004.

Community First Responders are volunteers who respond to the most serious emergency calls, such as heart attacks and strokes. They can give life saving treatment before ambulance crew arrives.

Daniel Mortlock, 21, administrator of the Harwich and District Community First Responders, has been a first responder since he was 17.

“I’ve lost count of how many callouts I’ve attended,” he said.

“The work we do is really important because an ambulance cannot always reach our community within five minutes. “If a person suffers cardiac arrest, for every minute a defibrillator isn’t used their chance of survival decreases by fourteen per cent,” he said.