A piece of vital life-saving equipment is now in situ at the RSPB’s Seabird Centre at Bempton Cliffs thanks to the generosity of a local woman.
Pat Gardner (seen above with the RSPB's Sarah Aitken and Yorkshire Ambulance Services,Jayne Scott ) lost her husband Terry in 2009 and since then has been raising money in his memory to install defibrillators across the county. Bempton Cliffs is the latest recipient and brings the total of defibrillators given to organisations by Pat to 13:
‘I really wanted to find a useful way of keeping Terry’s memory alive’ said Pat, ‘and funding defibrillators seemed the perfect solution’.
As a retired nurse, Pat knows only too well the importance of having defibrillators to hand in an emergency. While the team at Bempton Cliffs is receiving training, the equipment is designed to be used by anyone in those crucial minutes before an ambulance arrives. No medical knowledge is required to operate the unit.
Paul Stevens, Head of Community Resilience at Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust, said: “Having easy access to an AED means that immediate life-saving care can be provided in an emergency situation, such as a cardiac arrest, in the vital minutes before the ambulance arrives. We know that in many medical emergencies the first few minutes are critical and if effective interventions such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can be performed along with the use of an AED within those minutes, lives can be saved.”
But this kind of equipment doesn’t come cheap. And in the years since Terry’s death, Pat has undertaken a mammoth fund raising exercise to help turn her defibrillator dreams into reality - starting with a 46 mile walk from Doncaster to York which raised enough to help purchase the first three Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs). She went on to tackle Kinder Scout, Pen-y-ghent and Whernside and has often been pushed to the limits physically. She has also received financial support from the Yorkshire Ambulance Service Charitable Fund who provided half the funding.
All the defibrillators have been placed in a historic, heritage and countryside locations – many of which Pat and Terry enjoyed visiting together. And, of course, Bempton Cliffs now possesses one too.
Bempton Cliffs’ site manager, Alison Barrett, said:
‘One of the things that makes RSPB Bempton Cliffs so special is its fairly remote location, so having this equipment available on site could mean the difference between life and death for one of our visitors. Pat’s tireless work is inspirational and we are very grateful to both her and the Yorkshire Ambulance Service for enabling us to install a unit’.