State-of-art defibrillator delivered to summit of Snowden

A BRAND-NEW state-of-the-art defibrillator has been delivered to the top of Wales’ highest mountain to help save lives.

It means that if one of the estimated 400,000 annual visitors to the summit of Snowdon suffers a cardiac arrest, members of the public can begin the “chain of survival” until emergency services arrive.

The new device replaces the previous one located at the Hafod Eryri Visitor Centre and, thanks to advanced technology, will no longer require someone to reach the top to check if it’s working.

Usually a Welsh Ambulance Service volunteer would travel on the mountain railway to the 1,085m peak to carry out regular visual checks.

However, the ZOLL AED3 model features smart technology, allowing it to be monitored 24 hours a day from any location using a mobile phone.

It has been jointly funded by the Achub Calon Y Dyffrun group, launched by Tomos Hughes, one of the ambulance service’s Community First Responders (CFR), to increase the number of defibrillators in north Wales, and manufacturers ZOLL Medical.

Tomos, from Cerrigydrudion, also runs the Uwchaled CFR team, and took the train to the summit of Snowdon on August 23 to put the new device in place.

He said: “It’s really good news that a state-of-the-art remote defibrillator is now available in one of the most remote locations.

“The more defibrillators we have in the community, the more it increases the chances of survival of someone suffering cardiac arrest.

“It’s been used twice this year and deployed three times, so I’ve been up there three times to check on it. Now we can do that from a smartphone anywhere.

“It wouldn’t have been possible to provide this without the support of the public in Wales and our partnership with ZOLL Medical.”

As a CFR, Tomos has been trained by the Welsh Ambulance Service to administer basic firstaid skills, recognise cardiac conditions, deliver cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and use a defibrillator.

In 2015 he established Achub Calon y Dyffryn (Saving the Heart of the Valley), which has set up 177 public-access defibrillator sites in the region, and trained approximately 3,000 people to use them and administer CPR.

A cardiac arrest is a life-threatening condition.

Around 8,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen in Wales every year, and chances of survival are increased when a defibrillator is applied or CPR is carried out.