Our new Automatic External Defibrillator – AED – is a life-saving device which gives anyone, trained or untrained, the ability to deliver a life saving shock of electricity to a victim of cardiac arrest, restoring their heart’s normal rhythm.

While we all hope this never has to be used, the ability to restart a faltering heart is very re-assuring in our village, where trained medical help is usually some distance away, and when mere minutes can make the difference between life and death.

Packington Post interviewed Mike Coke, Defibrillator Project Co-Ordinator for Packington Memorial Hall Committee, who said : “I am delighted to be able to report that the Packington Defibrillator is now available 24/7 right here in our village, meeting our target for completion before Easter 2014. ”

“Sixteen village people attended our first training session early in April, and a second training session is being organised for an evening in May or early June. To reserve your place, please call me, Mike Coke, on 560430, or email me at mike dot coke at talktalk dot net ”

If you should find yourself on the spot, with a heart-attack patient desperately needing your help, YOU can now help them and use this equipment too, trained or not, as long as you have a ‘phone.  Here are the simple instructions, shown in Green on the front panel: Phone for help FIRST – dial 999 or 112 and ask for Ambulance. Start resuscitation – they will tell you how to do it if you don’t know – for how to access the equipment, look at the writing in yellow by the access keypad:

That keypad is under the sliding perspex cover, as seen below: Nobody wants to be in the situation of having to use this machine, but keep at the back of your mind that it could be YOU, and the machine is basically automatic and self-explanatory. If there is no other way to help save a life, YOU would be able to have a go, guided by your phone instructions and the simple clear notices on this AED equipment.

Packington may have just become a safer place..

Could you take advantage of the next training session to learn more about this vital piece of equipment so that YOU could confidently help save a life?  Contact Mike Coke, as above, for your chance to be on the second session on an evening in May or June 2014.