Learn to ‘Restart a Heart’ and save lives at Lion Walk Shopping Centre. We’re teaming up with the emergency services to teach vital life-saving skills as part of an annual resuscitation awareness campaign.
The East of England Ambulance Service (EEAST), Essex County Fire and Rescue Service and Essex Police will be in the shopping centre on Wednesday 16 October for Restart a Heart Day. The public and staff working at Lion Walk will be taught what to do in the event of a cardiac arrest, how to perform CPR and use a defibrillator.
Restart a Heart (RSAH) is an initiative led by Resuscitation Council UK. It aims to increase the number of people surviving out-of-hospital cardiac arrests by helping more people learn CPR. In April, the early starting of CPR by a member of the facilities team at Lion Walk helped save a woman’s life. Stuart Moore, who has worked at Lion Walk for coming up to 10 years, started CPR when the woman went into cardiac arrest. Oliver Ingrouille and Keaton Eccles, first responders from Essex County and Rescue Service, were quickly on scene and took over CPR and used a defibrillator to shock the woman’s heart back into a normal rhythm.
Their early intervention gave EEAST paramedics and clinicians at the Essex and Herts Ambulance the opportunity to stabilise the woman and transport her to hospital. The woman was one of around 4,000 patients in cardiac arrest that EEAST attends each year.
In the UK there are over 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests a year where emergency medical services attempt to resuscitate the patient. Survival rates from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in the UK remain stubbornly low, with fewer than one in 10 people surviving. Every minute without CPR and defibrillation reduces a person’s chance of survival by 10%. This demonstrates the importance of early bystander CPR before the ambulance service arrives on scene.
Michael Lewis, a paramedic at EEAST who will be leading the training on the day, said:
“Every second counts with a cardiac arrest and we are aiming to teach as many people as possible life-saving skills in the Lion Walk.
“Bystander CPR is so important in improving the chances of a patient’s survival when they have a cardiac arrest – as was shown in the Lion Walk last April.
“When I attend cardiac arrests and am informed CPR has been started early by someone trained it reassures me the patient is given every chance of survival.
“So, please come along on the day and help make our communities safer by increasing the number of people trained in basic life support.”
Martin Leatherdale, Lion Walk Centre Manager, said:
“We are incredibly pleased to host restarts a heart day with the Ambulance Service and partners. We have witnessed first-hand this year the incredible heroic work of using CPR and AED to save a life in the Shopping Centre earlier this year.
The more people that have these life–saving skills, the more lives we can save, and the safer and more protected the city centre and our communities become.
“I would encourage everyone who can to attend and getting involved in this brilliant free exercise.”
