A FORMER Ludlow man who also worked at Tenbury Hospital has received a Queen’s Medal in recognition of his work fighting Ebola.

Mark Smith, a paramedic who lived in the town between 1984 and 2005 went as part of a team from Save the Children. He works for the West Midlands Ambulance Service and had worked at Tenbury Hospital between 1987 and 1989.

Mark Smith was deployed at the beginning of this year. He spent six weeks at a treatment centre in Kerry Town run by the charity Save the Children.

While he was there and, sweating heavily in a biohazard suit, he treated Ebola patients, or trained other volunteers in how to use the personal protective equipment so as not to catch the disease themselves.

Earlier this autumn, Mark received his medal in the post. It will accompany a number of other medals including those for his involvement in two Gulf Wars.

But he said, this medal is different: “I have a sense with this one that it’s more special in as much as – with a military campaign it’s ‘man versus man’ or, if you like, ‘man’s inhumanity to man',” he said.

“With this, it was man against the elements, against disease, making a difference to save man. So it was, in fact, ‘man’s humanity to man'.”

Paramedic Mark who lived in Charlton Rise and Vashon Close in Ludlow spoke to the Advertiser exclusively before his trip to Sierra Leonne where he spent six weeks working for Save the Children.

He spent a lot of time in a protective suit in a part of the world where it is always hot.

Mark is an area support officer with the West Midlands Ambulance Service.

“When the call goes up you answer, Sierra Leone is where my skills are needed,” Mark told the Advertiser.

The paramedic who has also lived in Burford and worked at Tenbury Hospital between 1987 and 1989 answered an appeal put out by the NHS for volunteers to work in the African country that was badly hit by ebola.

He called the disease ‘evil’ and said that it denies the human touch.

“It robs parents of that last contact with children and children the last contact with parents,” he said.

“As a medical profession it does not get much more essential than that.”

The man whom people know in both Ludlow and Tenbury admitted that he was apprehensive as there have been two cases of British nurses who have contracted Ebola while working in Africa.

Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey fought for her life in January after returning with Ebola and again in the autumn when she became seriously ill with complications including meningitis.

But he had previous experience of facing danger as a military reserve medic in both Gulf wars and said that his family supported his decision.