Academy Heroes receive Life Saver Award for Saving Steward's Life
On Good Friday, academy medical staff and coaches were rewarded with a 'life saver' award for their amazing efforts in saving Rob Newman's life following a sudden cardiac arrest earlier this year.
On the evening of January 10, steward Newman suffered a cardiac arrest at Landore Training Ground during an academy game.
Swansea City's academy medical staff were on hand to save his life that evening, performing CPR and making sure he received medical treatment as soon as possible.
Rob has now returned to work and continues to steward at both Landore and the Swansea.com Stadium on match days; and he has hailed the efforts of the staff and everyone in attendance that night.
"As bad as this sounds, I'm glad it happened where it did, as I could have been up my stable and I wouldn't have been able to call anyone for help," said Newman.
"I owe my life to everyone who helped me that night."
Academy senior sports therapist, Sara Gray, added: "Rob's treatment and recovery shows the importance of awareness and early defibrillation.
"All our coaches are first-aid trained and they were able to recognise early and use the right language across a radio to inform the medical team of the situation, which meant we could act fast.
"We communicated well as a team throughout and everyone played their part; the team work, early recognition, good quality CPR and defibrillation is what saved Rob’s life."
Health and safety manager at Swansea City Jamie Gibbons presented the award at half-time of the home fixture against Coventry City, with those being recognised receiving a standing ovation from the Jack Army.
"Over 30,000 people in the UK have a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital every year, and less than 10% of these people survive," said Swansea City's head of medical, Jez McCluskey.
"It is therefore vital that everyone learns how to recognise a cardiac arrest and provide effective CPR and early use of an AED, as you just never know when you may need to use these vital life skills.
At the Club we have Emergency Action Plans for our training sites, as well as home and away games, which covers this.
"All our medical department staff, as well as many of our coaches and performance staff have regular training in recognising a cardiac arrest, as well as how to provide CPR.
"I am delighted and very proud of the staff involved in how they dealt with the recent cardiac arrest at Landore.
"Without their training, quick actions, and ready access to an AED - which are present at all our training sites and games - the outcome would have been very different."
On behalf of Swansea City, we would like to thank Sara Gray, Holly Scannell, Joe Roberts, Matthew Layton (not pictured), and Brandon Yeap for their incredible efforts.