AEDs installed in rural towns
A community initiative supported by St John is helping to increase the chances of Cambridge people surviving heart attacks.
HEARTSafe Cambridge places automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, around the town and nearby rural communities.
The defibrillators are kept in lockboxes for access 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
They have been found to significantly improve the chances of survival for a person who experiences a cardiac arrest if they are used within five minutes of the attack happening.
HEARTSafe has recently placed the machines in Fencourt, Te Miro, Eureka, Kairangi, Kaipaki and sites around Cambridge.
Several months ago the group helped the Matangi community fundraise and hold an open afternoon in the centre of the village, where there were demonstrations of defibillators being used with CPR.
The event raised enough money for a defibrillator to be placed in a lockbox outside the Four Square store in Matangi.
HEARTSafe recently pur- chased bright red, reflective road signs to mark the location of the defibrillators, which were being installed across all locations.
ITM Cambridge donated 16 posts to accommodate the signs.
An upcoming event at St Kilda Cafe & Bistro on from 1 to 2pm on April 22, hosted by HEARTSafe and St John Ambulance Cambridge, will include demonstrations of using defibrillators alongside CPR.
Donations will also be sought to purchase a defibrillator and lockbox to install on the outside wall of the cafe. Another event is planned for Karapiro in May.