Heart of the Nation
In January 2020, Greg Page — best known as the original Yellow Wiggle — was performing on stage at Castle Hill RSL when he suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. A nearby defibrillator, a device to shock the heart in an emergency, saved his life.
Publicly accessible Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) can be the difference between a good outcome and a devastating outcome for patients and can be administered by anyone. Using an AED within the first three minutes of a cardiac arrest has been shown to improve lifesaving outcomes of patients from 10 per cent up to 70 per cent.
As centrally located community facilities, clubs are well-placed to play host to public defibrillators.
ClubGRANTS can also be used to support the installation of AEDs. Belmont 16s, partnered with Hunter Heart Safe to install more than half a dozen AEDs across the Lake Macquarie region. The Club provided ClubGrants funding and worked with the local council to place the AEDs in easily accessible public locations.
“For the last five years our volunteers have been providing free cardiac arrest response training to community groups, clubs and schools in the Lake Macquarie and Newcastle area,” said Dr Mark Miller from Hunter Heart Safe.
“This year, our charity has partnered with Belmont 16s and Heart of the Nation to place eight publicly accessible AEDs around the Lake Macquarie community.”
AED placement, registration and mapping are key to improving survival in cardiac arrest.
“The Club had an AED on site for many years, but wanted to ensure that as many people as possible were able to access these devices in an emergency,” CEO of Belmont 16s, Scott Williams said.
“We were able to assist Hunter Heart Safe to finalise approval for AEDs on council land.”
Since recovering from his own cardiac event, Greg has started Heart of the Nation to raise awareness of the importance of AEDs and CPR to save lives. He recently addressed the Newcastle and Hunter Valley Regional Meeting alongside Mark to encourage clubs to install AEDs in their venues.
“With the help of clubs in NSW, we have been able to get out nearly 200 of these 24/7 accessible AED packages in the past 12 months. That is an astounding feat, with nearly 15,000 people having more rapid access to an AED if needed,” said Greg.
“This shines a light on the valuable role that clubs play in supporting our community where government does not.”
For more information about how your club can purchase an AED, contact Heart of the Nation at [email protected].
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