Well, can you believe it has been a year since Steve and I took over Walnut Grove Clinic? We certainly can’t. It has been quite the whirlwind of a year with recruiting a new osteopath, Felix; Kate our lymphoedema/Scar Work/Cancer specialist; Lea, a foot health practitioner; and Tatiana, a new yoga instructor, all working alongside our existing fantastic team.
The support from each and everyone of you has been overwhelming and we cannot thank you enough for all the kind words of encouragement.
One of our big highlights, and our first major achievement, was the community defib challenge that we undertook in June to try and raise funds for 2 community external defibrillators to be installed in areas that were identified as needing these devices upon consultation with the Lion’s, who, over the years have undertaken the project in Portishead to install defibs in as many places as possible to help save lives.
In the UK there are 260 admissions a day due to a heart attack or 1 every 5 minutes!
If a defibrillator is used within 3-5 mins of someone collapsing, the likelihood of survival is 75%. This can increase to 90% if administered within a minute! However, survival rate drops dramatically for every minute after 5 mins, this shows how important it is to have as many defibs as possible available and easily accessible to the public. You never know when it might be needed!
We raised a whopping £3800 with the support of everyone far and wide during our June ‘Land’s End to John O’Groats’ collective challenge which has enabled us to buy the first defib, to be installed outside the building at Walnut Grove Clinic and is due to be installed shortly by the wonderful Jacob Rollings of T+T Electrical, who has kindly volunteered his help and for this we are very grateful.
However, due to rising costs of equipment we are sadly short for the second defibrillator by just £600. We were so disappointed to learn of this when placing orders, but we know we can rely on the generosity of the amazing Portishead community to hopefully raise this final amount in order to get the second installed at the Walnut Grove Studio site. We are so close again to our target and with the help of the Great Western Air Ambulance, through whom we have purchased the first defib, we can hopefully achieve this and get that second lifesaving piece of equipment up and ready to serve the public.
October the 16th is Restart a Heart Day so what better day than this to try and push over the finishing line and get those funds for this vital second defib.
If you can help, then please visit our fundraising page where every little helps!
https://greatwesternairambulance.enthuse.com/pf/walnut-defib-11ee9
