OXFORSHIRE’S St John Ambulance operations director has urged revellers to remain with friends on nights out.

Five ambulances and volunteer crews from the charity helped paramedics deal with the aftermath of New Year’s Eve celebrations on Friday night.

Andrew Dawson said his volunteers had dealt with a number of calls to individuals who were worse off for drink and who had seemingly be abandoned by friends.

He said: “One of the main things is people should go out in a group, so you have people with you and can be there for each other.

“A lot of the people we went out to didn’t have anyone with them. They were on their own and that makes them more vulnerable to the drink.

“In a larger group, you will have some people who are less drunk than others who can keep an eye on those who have had too much to drink and make sure they get home safely, perhaps meaning there are a few less unnecessary calls to the ambulance service.”

Mr Dawson said the volunteers dealt mostly with calls to drunk people but also helped with inter-hospital transfers and other medical emergencies such as chest pain.

He said: “One of the things you always get on New Year’s Eve is people having a little bit more than they should. There were plenty of people who had collapsed outside and couldn’t make their way home.

“That meant there were admissions to the hospital which really didn’t need to happen because people fell over, maybe hurt themselves, and just needed to sleep it off rather than have hospital treatment.”

In all, St John volunteers dealt with 18 ambulance calls, most of which came between 12.30am and 2.30am.

A fire in Windrush Tower, Blackbird Leys, meant the volunteers stayed on duty for an extra hour until 4am, although their services were not required as no-one was injured in the blaze.

Mr Dawson said the extreme cold weather also added to the number of calls, with people slipping on ice.

The number of calls was broadly in line with previous New Year’s Eves.

Becky Hinton has been a volunteer for St John Ambulance for 10 years and was working her third New Year’s Eve.

She said: “I do it because it is good experience for us.

“The calls we were dealing with were mainly drunk people and it can be quite difficult to deal with them if they are aggressive.

“We saw people of all different ages on New Year’s Eve, and this year fortunately the injuries were quite minor, for example people being silly and jumping on each other then banging their heads on the floor.”