WOODLEIGH Parish Council and the British Heart Foundation are giving cardiac arrest victims a fighting chance for survival with an AED.

The Parish of Woodleigh is setting up a Public Access Defibrillator, also known as a Automatic External Defibrillator, available to anyone who is suffering a cardiac arrest. The parish has also been awarded a CPR training kit by the British Heart Foundation.

The Community Package contains all the necessary training aids to enable volunteers to learn CPR in half an hour. Training sessions will be arranged in the near future.

The defibrillator is a portable device that can be used by a member of the public to help return the heart to a normal rhythm when there has been a cardiac arrest. Every minute counts and survival decreases by 10 per cent per minute.

There are more than 30,000 cardiac arrests out of hospital every year and only one in ten survive. The BHF wish to make a ‘Nation of Lifesavers’ to improve these survival rates. It is important that schools and all training providers, should teach CPR and the use of defibrillators.

Simon Henderson, chair of the parish council, said: ‘The parish is delighted to accept this grant of a defibrillator from the BHF which will be located in the old phone box in the village.’

To date the BHF have placed over 13,000 defibrillators around the UK. For more information, visit the website: www.bhf.org.uk. The defibrillator at Woodleigh is now on our map of AEDs in the South Hams: tinyurl.com/southhamsdefibs or use our QR Code on the back of the paper.