A SAINT John Ambulance volunteer from Devon has been recognised for more than four decades of service to her community, in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
Mary Nunn (78), is receiving the British Empire Medal (BEM).
Mary, who lives in Cheriton Fitzpaine with her husband (and fellow volunteer) David, has been part of St John’s Minehead and Tiverton Units, and is now a member of the charity’s County Priory Group (CPG) and Fellowship.
She joined St John Ambulance in 1978, whilst working as a nurse at Somerset’s Hinkley Point where she organised first aid training for the nuclear power station’s staff.
In more recent years, she has been a Community First Responder, providing medical assistance to patients following 999 emergency calls – a role she and David recently retired from.
“It’s very nice to have been nominated,” said Mary. “I think my biggest achievement has been getting a public access defibrillator installed in the village and training people in how to use it.
“We live in a very rural area – an agricultural village, seven miles from the nearest town – and a defib could save someone’s life.”
In her decades of service with St John, Mary spent 14 years as a youth leader and is proud to have trained many teenagers in life-saving skills.
“I think that St John’s Cadets are the charity’s future and, even if they don’t stay with us as volunteers forever, what’s important is that they will use first aid in their everyday lives,” she added.
“Their communities are safer, because of them having those skills, and that’s something really worthwhile.”
Mary remains involved with St John and her primary role is as the CPG’s hospitaller, raising money for the Order of St John Eye Hospital in Jerusalem, which she and her husband visited in 2012, to see the institution’s vital work at first-hand.
She was made an Officer Sister of the Order of St John (St John Ambulance’s parent charity) in 2016 and named Rural Volunteer of the Year by the Devon Community Foundation in 2013.
Mary and David are Community Correspondents for Cheriton Fitzpaine for the “Crediton Courier”.