Defibrillator at Community Centre
The Hatch Warren Community Centre has around 8000 visitors a month and the staff and committee are aware that at some time one of the visitors could have a heart attack.
The chairman of the trustees, Stuart Colman, saw for himself the benefits of having a defibrillator when one was demonstrated at a children’s football training session he is involved with.
“The difference in survival rates between the normal CPR at about 4% and using a defibrillator is amazing, rising to 75%. And it’s so easy to use” said Mr Colman who then determined that such a piece of equipment should be available for the centre’s users. In October he applied to the British Heart Foundation for them to provide one without any cost to the centre. He was told in November that the application had been successful and the defibrillator was delivered in January.
“The machine tells the user what to do, it really is straight forward and we have all seen such equipment used on TV” Stuart enthused.
The Community Centre will now hold training sessions for representatives from all their user groups involving a DVD and mannequin to practice on. Thereafter there will be monthly training sessions which members of the public can join; please contact the Community centre office for dates and times. The emergency services have all defibrillators mapped across the region and can pinpoint the nearest to any incident.
