Lives could be saved during future emergencies in Stratton-on-the-Fosse, with the installation of a brand new defibrillator on site at the Village Hall.

The device was fixed in place recently thanks to the efforts of Waterside Carnival Club, which, whilst not

competing on the circuit, still raises money for the community it once served. And with many members still living

locally, causes have been identified that will benefit from the money raised, mainly thanks to voluntary work carried out by members at Glastonbury Festival.

£2,000 was presented to help fund the Automated

External Defibrillator (AED), with other donations received from St Vigor and St Benedict’s Churches, private donations and Stratton-on-the-Fosse Village Hall to get to the £3,000 needed for the defibrillator and its casing.

The AED is a portable device which can be used in an emergency with the help of a 999 call handler or paramedic, so anyone in the village would be able to get to the site quickly if needed, follow the instructions by the operator (a code is given to access the defibrillator), and then talked through how to use it. It automatically diagnoses life-threatening arrhythmias, and the application of electricity can allow the heart to re-establish its rhythm.

“People shouldn’t be afraid of using a defibrillator in an emergency,” says Rob Pawley, from Waterside Carnival Club, who have also helped install another in Westfield. “They cannot do any harm to anyone under supervision.

“Whilst the club isn’t running any more, there are still a few of us left, and we wanted to give something back to the community. We have some people who have volunteered to look after the new piece of equipment in the village – to carry out weekly checks and keep it safe.

“We actually thought that the one in Westfield had been stolen – but it turned out that it had actually been used by a paramedic and was still at the RUH. It has been returned to us now, but just goes to show how useful they are.

“The money we have raised over the years has also helped buy laptops for use by a local playgroup and we have also made donations to the Scouts and Bloodbikes.”

The installation of the defibrillator comes at a time when the NHS, British Heart Foundation and Microsoft have announced that they will be teaming up to create a database of all of the UK’s AEDs. That way, the call handler will be able to direct the caller to their nearest life-saving device. Despite tens of thousands placed around communities, it is reported that less than 3% are used in an out-of-hospital cardiac emergency, reducing chances of survival. The database scheme is set to be piloted by the West Midlands Ambulance Service and the Scottish Ambulance Service before being rolled out across the UK in Spring 2019.