Pub installs defibrillator

A pair of community-minded publicans from Horsmonden have taken delivery of the village's first public defibrillator – and pledged to train residents how to use it. Husband-and-wife team Chris and Claire Reed, proprietors of The Highwayman in Maidstone Road, have taken delivery of the electronic heart-shocking equipment and installed it on an outside wall at their pub to make it accessible to the whole community. Volunteer ambulance technician Mrs Reed, 30, said she had realised there was a need for such a device soon after moving to the village from Brenchley 18 months ago.

The mother of two said: "It can sometimes take 20 to 25 minutes to get an ambulance here, so if someone has a heart attack then their chances aren't great. As we are quite enthusiastic about first aid, we thought:'What can we do in our community to make it better?' " The answer came from the South East Coast Ambulance service (SECAmb), which runs a scheme named Community First Response.



The initiative organises and trains local volunteers to be on call in case of certain kinds of emergency, such as cardiac arrest. "SECAmb looked at our stats and said 'yes, there is a need in your village, we will provide you with a defibrillator and train you for that'," said Mrs Reed. A SECAmb spokesman explained how a heart attack victim's chance of survival falls by approximately 10 per cent for each minute spent without a shock from a defibrillator or cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

He said: "The importance of members of the public learning life-saving skills and the role Public Access Defibrillators can play in the vital minutes before the arrival of ambulance clinicians in saving people's lives cannot be underestimated." Mrs Reed said she was now on the lookout for volunteers to form a Community First Response group in Horsmonden. "In the coming months we are going to be organising group training in the village," she said. "There will be an age restriction, but just about anybody that wants to come along for a 20-minute training course on the basics of CPR and use of defib can do so. Hopefully, it will bring members of the community together."