WARRINGTON taxi cabs will now carry military grade bandages for use in emergencies.

The taxis will carry the bandages which are designed to stem serious blood loss following knife crime, serious accidents or a major incident.

Participating cabs will display green window stickers allowing the public and the emergency services to identify the cab, flag them down and be given immediate access to the lifesaving bandages in those first golden minutes to stop blood loss until help arrives.

The emergency bandages are donated by the Oxford based charity RAPAID and they have been distributed and donated to thousands of taxi cabs across cities and towns up and down the country.

Charity founder Alex Chivers a retired Police firearms officer and special forces veteran is determined to distribute the Emergency bandage kits into taxi cabs across the entire country.

Alex said: “With a serious haemorrhage it’s a grim fact that you can bleed to death in under five minutes - time literally does save lives and the quicker treatment begins the better your chances of survival.

“I knew that a solution had to be simple enough for the untrained public and easily accessible to find in those vital first moments. It made perfect sense to use the same military bandages designed for the battlefield and to have these bandage kits carried on taxis that are in and out of our community day and night.”

This initiative has been rolled out in Warrington to coincide with Operation Sceptre, a weeklong campaign by Cheshire Police working in partnership with residents, community groups and partner organisations to reduce the impact of knife crime across the county.

Superintendent Andrew Blizard, Cheshire Police’s knife crime lead, said: “Knife crime is a key priority and Cheshire Police has an excellent history of partnership working and the distribution of emergency bandages to taxis across Warrington could be the difference in saving someone’s life. The RAPAID campaign is a welcome addition to a range of initiatives that are in place across the county.”

Helping to distribute the Emergency bandage kits on to the Warrington taxi cabs was Esther Ghey, whose daughter Brianna was tragically stabbed to death in Culcheth Linear Park  in February last year.

Esther said: “I don’t think you can underestimate how important the deployment of these emergency bandage kits is and what a difference they could make. I hope that these kits are never needed, but the reality is that if used they will save lives when dealing with serious blood loss, not just by those impacted by knife crime but also by serious accidents. This is such a simple, lifesaving initiative.”