Heart Start

At a recent presentation evening at the Leamington & County Golf Club in Whitnash, Mr Roy Ellis, this years captain, organised a charity week. This raised a staggering £5,250 towards the First Responders Heart-Start campaign, which will purchase two defibrillator packs for the Whitnash Area.

These packs contain Airway management equipment, artificial breathing equipment and most importantly an Automated External Defibrillator (AED). This machine starts the heart if it stops. This is called a Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA)

SCA can happen to anyone at any time regardless of age, sex, weight or fitness levels. If the heart stops we must get their heart started and working, ideally within 4-6 minutes. This is a tall order I think you agree. Warwickshire Ambulance Service (WAS) are in the top 3 of all Ambulance Services to get to a patient suffering SCA within 8 minutes 75% of the time. They are constantly trying to improve this. One way is by utilising Community First Responders. By living locally in towns and villages, once a life threatening call comes into Ambulance Service Headquarters, the Officer in charge will despatch the nearest available Ambulance and active a First Responder. First Responders have been proven to help prolong life nationwide.

We are now looking to recruit members of the public who can give a few hours a month to be an active responder. WAS will train them at no cost. This will take approx. 4 hours. They will then have a short practical exam in the use of the Defibrillator (they will also go through various conditions such as heart attacks, asthma, epilepsy etc.) Once trained, the person will be on call with the kit bag for however long or short a time as they wish. Andy Allen will work alongside Responders with rotas etc. Our local MP James Plaskitt fully supports this project and will be officially launching it.

To reassure anyone, the Defibrillator is foolproof. It will only shock if required. There is NO manual override of this facility. In America they have them in shopping malls for the public to use, if required. They ARE foolproof.

There is no payment, no personal gain. We can say however, if you save a persons life, you can do no better for them.

For any information, no obligation please tel. Warwickshire Ambulance Service HQ on 01926 881331 (24hrs) and leave a message for Mike Bartlett. Alternately, via my message pager on 07699 715668 (24hrs) leaving their name and contact tel. number. I will return their call.

Should you require any more information about this vital life saving scheme, please do not hesitate to contact me on the numbers above or via my email address.

Back to the Notices page