Each year in Britain around 30,000 people are struck by sudden cardiac arrest or heart attack outside of hospital environments. They can affect anyone at any time – from young children at school to adults when they’re at home, work or out in public places.
If victims aren’t treated properly, more often than not these events are fatal.
The British Heart Foundation’s figures show that only one in ten victims survive. There are a couple of reasons for this sorry figure – namely the lack of education and training and poor fast access to a defibrillator.
A defibrillator is a device developed to combat cardiac arrest or heart attack brought on by a fibrillation or irregular heart rhythm. This irregularity causes the heart to stop receiving enough blood and can result in sudden death if not treated properly.
Without immediate treatment, 90-95 per cent of cardiac arrests prove fatal
Research by the British Heart Foundation reveals that only four in ten bystanders performed CPR and that 62 per cent of British adults admitted to being worried about what to do if someone collapsed in front of them after suffering cardiac arrest.
CPR must be learnt, but today’s defibrillators are all easy-to-use models that walk their users through the whole process and communicate what to do.
What should you do if sudden cardiac arrest happens?
Call 999
The emergency services should be immediately alerted to the problem. Once they have been called, CPR should be administered as soon as possible, if it hasn’t been already.
Start CPR
The emergency services will be on their way and you should be starting CPR, but now’s the time to look for a nearby defibrillator.
Look for a defibrillator
With any luck, there will be one near you. For maximum accessibility, they’re most common in public places such as train stations, shopping centres, airports and leisure centres.
Find your nearest defibrillator with Heart Safe.
Defibrillators, which are usually mounted onto walls in the places they are most needed, allow users to provide high-energy, powerful electric shocks to the heart through pads which are placed on the chest near the heart.
It’s the shock itself that’s called defibrillation.
Don’t be afraid to use one – they are automatic – follow the instructions – they will not deliver a shock unless it’s needed.
Time is Critical
Early defibrillation combined with CPR can improve survival rates to as high as 74% when defibrillation is provided within three minutes of collapse. For every minute that elapses between sudden cardiac arrest and defibrillation, the chance of survival decreases by 7 to 10%. That’s why choosing an automated external defibrillator (AED) that can be trusted to help reduce unnecessary shock delays could make the difference between life and death.
At Walnut Grove we have been passionate about health and community for 32 years and counting. The Lions in Portishead have done a fantastic job at getting nearly 30 defibrillators installed in and around Portishead and back in 2022 we raised just over £4k to be able to support their project and fund the installation of two further defibrillators at both Walnut Grove Clinic on Slade Road and Walnut Grove Studio on Papermill Gardens. Both of these defibs have had several callouts within this time for potential cardiac events which highlights why we set out to achieve what we did and why the more defibs we have around town the better.
