Three schools gifted AEDs
St John and ASB have gifted Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) to three Hawke’s Bay schools recently.
St John National 3 Steps for Life and GoodSAM Programme lead Cody Booth presented an AED to Bledisloe School in Taradale this April, to Mangateretere School in early May and to Napier’s Sacred Heart College on Thursday.
Booth’s role includes identifying schools in the area that are ideal locations to house an AED.
He said he recognised that Bledisloe School backs onto a sports field and therefore close to those who are likely to require one, Mangateretere is on a main road that typically has a higher number of accidents than schools on quieter streets and Sacred Heart College was selected because it neighbours Napier Girls’ High School and therefore covers a large group of young people.
“Having an AED placed at your school not only supports your students, teachers, support staff and your whānau but also your local community,” Booth said.
“Hato Hone St John has a mission to empower all members of the public to step forward in an emergency and providing people with access to an AED supports more people in communities to do that.”
All schools have expressed gratitude for the AED gifts, but it has had particular significance for Sacred Heart College where one of their students had performed CPR on a family member suffering a cardiac arrest last year before the ambulance crews arrived with an AED.
Principal Maria NevilleFoster said increasing access to AEDs in the community will help save more lives.
“We know how important it is to have easy access to AEDs in our communitybecause last year one of our whānau’s lives was saved by an AED.
“Therefore, it was really important for us to be able to look after not only the Sacred Heart community but the wider Mataruahou (Napier Hill) community, so if ever needed, we too could save a life.”
Only one in 10 people are expected to survive a cardiac arrest with those chances falling by 10 per cent each minute an AED is not used.
Any school or young person’s organisation interested in receiving an AED and CPR education should email 3stepsforlife@stjohn. org.nz .