COULD one of the bottles in your fridge save your life? Lancaster Lions think so - and 7,000 local people seem to agree.

One year since the launch of their 'Have you got the bottle' campaign, the fund-raising organisation is celebrating its continuing success - and hoping motorists will bottle it in the future as well.

By placing personal and medical information - including details of any illnesses and allergies, next of kin and family contacts - the bottle can help emergency services in the event of an accident.

It is kept in the fridge so it is easier to find, and stickers are handed out to be placed on the fridge and inside the home.

The scheme has received National Lottery funding and requests are still being received for more bottles at distribution centres - such as pharmacists and doctors surgeries.

The bottles are free.

Lions president David Milnes has more reason than most to thank the bottle scheme.

When his 84-year-old mother had a heart attack earlier this year, his father, who is deaf, was able to direct the ambulance crew to the bottle, so they could get full details of her diabetes and other medical conditions.

"I wouldn't go as far as to say it saved her life, but it certainly saved my father from having to struggle to give them the information."

The scheme is co-ordinated by former Lion's president Joe Pearson, who said: "It is a simple and effective way of giving information to the emergency services.

"Anybody can use it, though it is generally people who live on their own, people who cannot speak or have some kind of medical condition.

"It could even be extended to be put in people's cars.

When there is an accident, the fire service and police sometimes don't know who the people involved are.

"We will be encouraging people to use the same bottle and put it in the glove compartment when they are driving."

And the Lions club is ensuring that the scheme, which is one of the first in the country, is spreading far and wide.

Mr Pearson added: "One lady from Skipton, who went to Morecambe on her holidays, picked up one of the bottles and took it back with her.

"She asked the president of Skipton Lions Club why they weren't running the same scheme.

They are now."