Trendy iPods may be a must-have gadget for fashionable music fans but the latest download on offer could help save lives.

An ambulance service is the first in the UK to offer first aid and resuscitation advice which can be downloaded from its website.

It is like having a paramedic in the ear of the listener.

If anyone with an iPod or other MP3 player should come across a casualty in the street, they will be able to flick from their music in seconds to get medical advice from the voice of Southern FM breakfast DJ Nicky Keig-Shevlin.

A recorded message guides the listener stage-by-stage through lifesaving treatments.

Information on a range of the most common conditions that people phone 999 for has been pre-recorded in a user-friendly electronic audio format.

Each audio file, which lasts between two and three minutes, can be downloaded individually from the Sussex Ambulance Service website.

Conditions covered include burns, fits, wounds, what to do if someone has collapsed and how to perform CPR on adults and babies.

The scheme is the brainchild of paramedic and emergency care practitioner Stuart Rutland, 31.

He said: "I was out running one day, listening to my iPod and began thinking how much I take my paramedic skills for granted.

"For a person with no clinical training to come across someone collapsed, in public or at home, must be terrifying.

"Hopefully the audio files will be of support to someone in this position, although they are not meant to be a substitute for a first aid course or for the advice given by the emergency control centre if you phone 999."

The information can be found at www.sussamb.nhs.uk/k .