Guardian Rescue EMS Support Fund

Campaign title: Keep Guardian Rescue on the road — every call-out is a life

Tagline: 178 call-outs. 103 patients. Six months. Not one cent charged. We are running on empty and we need you now.

The story

We are Guardian Rescue Volunteer Services NPC — a registered non-profit emergency medical and rescue service in the north-western suburbs of Johannesburg. Every one of us is a volunteer. Nobody is paid. Nobody is billed. We hold a 72-hour duty window every weekend of the year, and we answer the phone at 2am when a provincial ambulance is still three to five hours away.

In the last six months alone we have responded to 178 call-outs and treated more than 100 patients. Cardiac arrests. Car crashes. Drownings. Missing children. Palliative patients dying at home with nobody else to call. We go, we treat, we stabilise, we stay — and we never send an invoice.

But every call-out costs money we do not have. A tank of diesel for a loaded 4x4 response vehicle is over R2 000, and it runs out fast at speed. Every...