Garage Gives Ewell a Heart-Start
A busy garage in Ewell that supports a prominent local charity now offers a rather special – and potentially life-saving – service.
Autotest MOT in Ruxley Lane recently celebrated its new car-servicing facility with an open day hosted by directors Stephen Hardie-East and Shelley Hofman, inviting customers, friends and neighbours. Guests enjoyed music, refreshments and a raffle, including a light-hearted competition to guess how many balloons were packed into a car. The event raised funds for the Epsom Medical Equipment Fund, a charity that since its launch in 1979 by Bess Harding has raised over £6 million to buy equipment for Epsom General Hospital that would not normally be funded by the National Health Service. Purchases have ranged from small items to major diagnostic machines.
As Autotest approaches its thirty-fifth year of trading, the charity has returned the gesture of support. It has donated a ZOLL brand defibrillator worth £2,300 to the garage. A defibrillator is a device that can deliver an electric shock to restart a person’s heart in cardiac arrest. This model is designed for public use and gives clear spoken instructions, guiding an untrained person step-by-step through pad placement and giving real-time feedback on the quality of chest compressions. Bess Harding explained that it “verbally walks a rescuer through placing the pads and gives essential feedback on the quality of their compressions to give the best chance of surviving.”
Stephen and Shelley, with Shelley being a qualified first-aider, said they were delighted to have the device on site and thanked the Epsom Medical Equipment Fund for providing it. The charity has also just purchased twenty-nine defibrillators for Epsom General Hospital.
Public access to defibrillators is seen nationally as a key factor in saving lives from cardiac arrest outside hospital. There are around 30,000 such incidents in the United Kingdom each year and fewer than ten per cent of people survive. Medical experts say the chances of survival more than double if a defibrillator is used quickly, ideally within five minutes, together with cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Each minute of delay can cut survival chances by up to ten per cent. Despite this, studies show that even when a defibrillator is located within 500 metres, it is only used in about one in ten cases, often because bystanders do not know where to find one or are uncertain how to operate it.
The UK’s national database, known as The Circuit, maps the location of defibrillators so ambulance services can direct people to them during emergencies. There are now more than 70,000 devices registered, with a target of 100,000. Health charities estimate that if public awareness, training and willingness to use defibrillators were more widespread, an extra 1,000 lives could be saved in England each year.
In Epsom and Ewell, the borough council has worked with the Community Heartbeat Trust to install twelve public access defibrillators at locations including Ewell’s Market Place, Horton Pharmacy and Ruxley Lane. The new unit at Autotest adds another publicly accessible location, well-placed in a busy part of the borough, and comes with the reassurance of staff familiar with first aid.
More information about EMEF on its website: emef.org.uk
Image: Bess Harding of EMEG gives defibrillator to Stephen Hardie-East of Autotest
