Lifesaving apparatus ready at Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland season’s start
THE Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railway officially launched nine defibrillators along the line on February 17 at the start of its 2020 season.
The project has its roots in an incident several years ago when a passenger at Blaenau Ffestiniog suffered a heart attack and was attended not only by the local ambulance crew but also by two off-duty staff from the London Ambulance Service. In this instance, a defibrillator would have been of little use – but the patient’s family funded the instalment of a defibrillator at the station.
This move inspired a further donation, enabling the installation of defibrillators at the other principal stations of Caernarfon and Porthmadog, along with the workshops at Boston Lodge. Furthermore, it encouraged the railway to identify an opportunity to further enhance its first aid capabilities by placing defibrillators on the five main carriage sets. Thanks to the support of the Ffestiniog Railway Society and Cymdeithas Rheilffordd Eryri, defibrillators have been installed in each guard’s van.
Following the launch, passengers, staff and the local community will never be far from a defibrillator should it be unfortunately necessary to use one.
Tomos Hughes, who leads the project for the Wales Ambulance service across Gwynedd and North Wales, provided walk through demonstrations of the defibrillator machines during the afternoon. These machines provide users with fully automated vocal instructions to make their implementation simple to understand in case of emergency.
Tomos runs a local charity which aims to install defibrillators throughout the area – Achub Calon y Dyffryn (Saving the Heart of the Valley), which works in partnership with SADS UK and Keep the Beats charities.
The railway’s safety manager Nick Griffiths, and first aid volunteers and trainers Tony Peake and Ian Dawson, also attended the launch, along with Ffestiniog Railway Society chairman Howard Wilson and Welsh Highland Railway Society director Alun Tomlinson.