Help support lifesaving lessons this Defibruary

Help support lifesaving lessons this Defibruary

Last year 1,167 people learned how to use a defibrillator as part of St John Ambulance Cymru’s annual Defibruary Campaign, and this year Wales’s leading first aid charity aims to build on that success to ensure that even more people know how to use this lifesaving equipment.

St John Ambulance Cymru has rebranded February as Defibruary in an attempt to continue their mission to enhance the health and wellbeing of communities in Wales by encouraging people across the country to ‘Learn, Locate, Donate.’

Donations are vital to the St John Ambulance Cymru, which receives no core government funding and relies on private donations and income from first aid training to fund its charitable works.

The charity offers a free Public Access Defib Awareness Course in English or Welsh, with the aim of improving a Resuscitation UK Council statistic which states that there are over 30,000 out of hospital cardiac arrests every year in the UK, and the survival rate from these cardiac arrests is less than one person in every ten.

More information about the course, including how to book, can be found on the St John Ambulance Cymru website.

It is estimated that public access defibrillators are used in only 5% of these cardiac arrests and there are tens of thousands of defibrillators in the UK whose location is not known to ambulance services. 

As part of The Circuit network, a partnership between St John Ambulance (both in England and Wales), the British Heart Foundation and the Resuscitation Council UK, providing a nationwide overview of where defibrillators can be found.

The Circuit has helped map over 50,000 defibrillators in the UK and counting, and you can enter your postcode to locate the ten defibrillators closest to you using https://www.defibfinder.uk/

Darren Murray, Head of Community Operations, says, “Defibruary is a really important campaign for us here at St John Ambulance Cymru. We want to encourage people to become more defib-aware by learning how to use a defibrillator on one of our courses and ensuring they are able to locate their nearest defib.

We rely on donations to continue providing vital life-saving training and support in communities across Wales. A donation to St John Ambulance Cymru really could be the difference between a life lost, or a life saved.”