A FORMER doorman who was stabbed twice is offering free first aid training to taxi drivers in the wake of the Liverpool Women’s Hospital bombing.

Simon Owen’s company, Widnes-based ESO Education and Training, provides door supervision and emergency first aid courses.

And the firm is now offering free basic first aid training for taxi drivers after a passenger in such a vehicle detonated an explosive outside the hospital on Remembrance Sunday.

Courses run every Sunday for approximately two hours.

Simon is an advocate for the enhanced training at work after he was stabbed twice – the second attack leaving him critically injured after he was knifed while working as a door supervisor in Liverpool city centre.

He said: “My life was saved by the venue owner who had, weeks before, taken a first aid course.

“If not for his quick actions, I don’t think I would be here today.”

The incident led him to realise the importance of bringing this training to the taxi industry and approached Halton’s taxi licensing division for first aid training for drivers.

Simon added: “Every minute a victim of a cardiac arrest is not tended to, their chance of survival is reduced by six to 10 per cent – and after seven minutes it is reduced to 90 per cent.

“Drivers work alone with a customer who at any moment could fall ill, and we drivers may not have the correct life saving skills to aid that person.”