01 August 2002 00:00 EME engineers battle to help save seriously ill Notts toddler

During the recent storms in the county that left thousands of homes and businesses without electricity EME received many important calls.

One of the most important was from the home of a seriously ill toddler, when her West Leake house lost power just before midnight on Tuesday.

The three-year-old could not be moved and, without electricity, she would not be able to take the life-saving drugs she required at 2pm the next day through her electric drug pump. A limited life battery on the pump meant she was able to take her infusion at 2am but it was likely that the battery would run out by 2pm.

EME engineers rushed to the area as soon as the girl’s parents contacted the company and faced a race against time to find a solution to the power outage caused by the storms.

While the girl slept, engineers began repair work and even considered bringing in a portable generator to run the drug pump for the three-year-old.

Eventually, after 12 hours of continuous work, EME engineers got the power supply back on for the whole village. mf

The girl’s mum, said: “It’s very stressful for everyone to be left without electricity but loss of power for us is literally a case of life and death.

“We knew that EME would deliver for us because they’ve always been reliable whenever we’ve had a electricity crisis.”

Bob Taylor, Managing Director of EME, said: “When we have so many people off we have to prioritise and this was clearly a life or death situation so we made it our number one priority.

“I’m glad to say that there was a happy ending but I’d like to assure all our customers that our engineers are working as hard as they can to get everyone back on as quickly as they can.”

EME first became aware of the girl, who has immune deficiency and cerebral palsy, during the storms of October 2000 when the family contacted them during a power outage. During that crisis the company loaned the family a generator for a number of months.

Ends

Notes to editors:

The family does not wish to be identified but might be willing to do interviews

For more information contact:

Jonathan Smith on 024 7642 5741