Restart A Heart Day, on October 16th, is a day where an alliance of partners from across the country come together to increase public awareness of cardiac arrests and increase the number of people trained in delivering lifesaving CPR.
Wolves Foundation, who deliver a range of advice relating to CPR and health across many of its projects, are delighted to be adding practical support to the sharing of information by providing four defibrillators for use in the local community.
The defibrillators have kindly been donated by the Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, who have increased their own provision, and will be distributed to community venues which belong to the Active Through Football project run by the Foundation.
Restart A Heart Day highlights how approximately 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests take place every year in the UK, with less than one in ten people surviving in those circumstances. Performing CPR can more than double the chances of surviving in some cases.
Football has seen some very high-profile cases of players suffering a cardiac arrest during a game, including midfielder Fabrice Muamba back in 2012 and Christian Eriksen at the World Cup last year.
Both thankfully survived, whilst, only this week, Brighton midfielder Enock Mwepu announced his retirement at the age of 24 after the discovery of a hereditary heart condition.
“Thanks to Black Country Healthcare, we have been given some defibrillators and also have one of our own to donate as the Football Foundation provided new ones to all of their venues following what happened with Christian Eriksen,” explains Wolves Foundation’s head of health and wellbeing, Rachel Smith.
“We know how important the use of a defibrillator can be and we will be distributing them via the Foundation’s Active Through Football initiative which delivers football-based activity throughout the community.
“Having the defibrillators on site at different locations where activities are being delivered means these venues will have potentially life-saving equipment on site if the worst should happen.
“It is good that we have been able to redistribute the defibrillators as part of our overall work across health and education in making people more aware of first aid and the importance of knowing how to deliver CPR.”
The Foundation deliver paediatric first aid sessions at Healthy Goals sessions which run for pre-school children and includes offering CPR guidance to parents who attend.
And Foundation staff who deliver the Schools Education programme incorporate the ‘DR ABC’ approach with pupils, standing for Danger, Response, Airway, Breathing and Circulation.
Restart A Heart Day involves the work of a number of agencies and charities coming together to raise awareness, including the Resuscitation Council UK, the European Resuscitation Council, the British Heart Foundation, British Red Cross, St John Ambulance, the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, NHS England, Save a Life for Scotland, Save a Life Cymru, and Northern Ireland Ambulance.
They do this by organising and facilitating training events and also by providing opportunities for people to learn CPR digitally in the safety and comfort of their own home.
