Thanks to South Swindon Parish Council and an anonymous donor, Christ Church have received funding of just over £2000 to install a publicly accessible defibrillator on the entrance wall to the Community Centre @ Christ Church.

 

This is a vitally important piece of kit for anyone who suffers a cardiac arrest as it can be used to send a shock through the heart which increases the chance of it being restarted.

 

A Sudden Cardiac Arrest victim’s chance of survival increases significantly from around 5% to 75% if they receive good CPR combined with therapy delivered by a Heart Defibrillator within the first 3 minutes after a Cardiac Arrest.

 

For every minute that passes without defibrillation a Sudden Cardiac Arrest victim’s chances of survival decrease by between 10% & 12%. A simple calculation shows that the victim’s likely maximum chance of survival in reality is between 8 & 10 minutes after the Cardiac Arrest occurring. With the current Ambulance target response time of 8 minutes, time is of the absolute essence and acting quickly with appropriate therapy, essential.

 

If someone were to have a cardiac arrest on site that the only possible chance of survival for them is to receive a shock to the heart by use of our new defibrillator.

 

Having a defibrillator on site is a necessity for a site the size of Christ Church with more than 1000 visitors coming through the church, community centre and burial ground each week. Whilst you associate heart attacks with older people, regrettably there are 12 children under the age of 18 that die in the UK each week from Cardiac Arrest and many more young adults.

 

The South Swindon Parish Council donated £1000 through their local community grants scheme. Chris Watt’s, chair of South Swindon Parish Council said ‘we are delighted to be able to support Christ Church to purchase a defibrillator, and in fact we would like to encourage other local community centres to follow suit and do the same. This is a life saving device and you can’t really put a price on someone’s life’.

 

Chris Smith, Community Centre @ Christ Church Centre manager said ‘this is something we have been thinking about for quite a long time now and following a recent first aid course it reminded me how important these devices are. Prior to us getting this device the chance of survival for someone having a cardiac arrest on site was virtually 0%. We have a lot of older people through our site each week and I can’t quite believe how we have never had one until now. I’m so grateful for the funding support that we have received to potentially save someone’s life’.

 

The defibrillator can be used by anyone in the community and is accessible in an emergency by calling 999 for the code to the locked yellow storage box. Whilst training isn’t necessary as you will be talked through how to use it by the emergency services, it is highly recommended that people take a basic first aid course where using a defibrillator is explained and demonstrated.