Friday 16th October is Restart a Heart Day
The annual event is designed to raise awareness about cardiac arrest and helps people to learn CPR, giving them life saving skills and the confidence to use them.
How fitting, then, that Heartbeat Haddenham has now installed a new defibrillator or AED (automated external defibrillator) mounted very prominently on the outside wall of the new Co-op store on Pegasus Road. The defibrillator is housed in a cabinet but is available and ready for use 24/7 by any member of the public.
Pictured at the open ceremony are (L to R): Co-op store manager Naz, local Rotary President Tim Mahoney, Rotarian Martin Andrew, and Heartbeat Haddenham's Richard Kendall.
An AED is used to help those experiencing sudden cardiac arrest. It's a sophisticated, yet easy-to-use, medical device that can analyse the heart's rhythm and, if necessary, deliver an electrical shock, or defibrillation, to help the heart re-establish an effective rhythm. To learn more, see here.
The defibrillator (and the cabinet in which it is kept) has been generously funded by Haddenham & District Rotary Club. The Club previously funded another defibrillator in the village. The Co-op kindly agreed to host the new cabinet and their contractors installed it.
The 999 emergency call centre holds details of all publicly accessible defibrillators. If you ring 999 and there is a defibrillator near enough to the casualty, the operator will direct to you to that defibrillator and give you the simple access code to open the cabinet.
Heartbeat Haddenham looks after five other publicly accessible defibrillators in the village that were all funded by generous donations made by organisations and individuals. The village defibrillators are mapped out in the graphic on this page (click on the map to view an enlarged version). In summary, they are located at:
· Haddenham & Thame Parkway station booking office
· St Mary's Centre at Church End
· The Church of the Good Shepherd at the junction of Crabtree Road, The Croft and Stockwell
· The Whistler (formerly the Sports & Social Club) at the Recreation Ground, Woodways
· Abbeyfield Care Home, 106 Churchway
. The Community Library at Banks Park
. Bradmoor Farm
Defibrillators are like fire extinguishers – you hope that you will never need to use them, but you need to have them just in case. However, the benefit of having publicly accessible defibrillators in the village was demonstrated recently when a lady had a cardiac arrest and one of the defibrillators contributed to a successful outcome.
Richard Kendall
Heartbeat Haddenham
