Call for communities to buy £2k defibrillators
A LIVE-saving charity is calling on communities across the area to raise £2,000 to buy a defibrillator to ensure the survival of cardiac arrest patients.
Lincolnshire Integrated Voluntary Emergency Service, known as Lives, wants to see a defrillator in every town and village across the county to give people who have suffered a cadiac arrest valuable time.
Cardiac arrest patients' chances of survival drop by 10 per cent each minute they are not treated and the defibrillator helps to re-start the heart using an electric shock.
But the group is calling on communities to raise 2,000 to get a defibrillator, which re-starts the heart using an electric shock, installed in a special security box on the side of key buildings close such as schools and shops.
So far a total of 20 of these stations have been set-up in other parts of the county, including a number of shops in Lincoln, but the charity is looking to roll it out into the Bourne area.
Fundraising, recruitment and marketing officer Stephen Hyde says the charity wants a defibrillator within six minutes of anyone who has had a cardiac arrest but stressed that ambulances do arrive quickly.
He said: "A village can get together and put a defibrillator in a publically accessible box fastened to the side of a church hall or shop or post offices. Should anyone have a cardiac arrest and make a 999 call, they will be given the defibrillator's location and code.
"It increases your chances of survival by 30 per cent if you are within two to three minutes of that machine. An interesting statistic from Heathrow Airport is that the chance of survival in 2008 was 68 per cent as they have these machines every two minutes. The faster you can defibrillated the better chance of survival."
The charity is also looking for four extra people in the Aslackby area to join up to the Folkingham First Repsonders Group, which currently has two people.
Anyone who is interested should contact Nigel Adams on 0787 6502999.
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Monday 06 February 2012
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