COMMUNITIES across Wales are being urged to become more aware of defibrillators in their local communities.

St John Ambulance Cymru has rebranded February as ‘Defibuary’ as part of their missing to improve Wales’ communities into learning how to use a defibrillator, where they are located and if possible, donating to provide more.

For every minute that someone is in cardiac arrest and they don’t receive CPR or a defibrillator is not used, their chance of survival decreased by 10 per cent, making both tools vital to helping more people survive.

Defibrillators are normally located in workplaces and public spaces such as shopping centres, community centres and train stations. These public access defibrillators are available for anyone to use, with codes that 999 call handlers will be able to give out when the defibrillator is needed, directing bystanders to the nearest one.

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However, it is believed that tens of thousands of the 100,000 public access defibrillators in the UK are unregistered to the emergency services.

St John Ambulance Cymru is urging people to be aware of their local defibrillator locations.

Darren Murray, head of community operations, said: “At St John Ambulance Cymru we offer training to ensure people know how to use a defibrillator, but it’s also vital that people know where they can find one.

“Using a defibrillator within three minutes of a cardiac arrest can drastically improve someone’s chance of survival, so speed is important.

“A person’s chances of surviving a cardiac arrest in the community decreased by up to 10 per cent with every passing minute; the longer the delay to the resuscitation, the worse the outcome.

“Knowing a defibrillator’s location can be the difference between life and death.”

St John Ambulance, the British Heart Foundation and the Resuscitation Council have partnered together to create the Circuit which maps more than 50,000 defibrillators across the UK. Find out more and see where your nearest logged one is here: https://www.defibfinder.uk/

You can also find out about St John Ambulance Cymru’s free online Public Access Defib Awareness Course here.

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