Bowling club gets heartfelt boost (From Knutsford Guardian)
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Bowling club gets heartfelt boost
12:20pm Saturday 18th August 2012 in News
By James Wilson
From left, Rob Sharples, from the NWAS, Alan Gresty, chairman of Crosstown Bowling Club and Colin Brookes, president of the club
LIFE-SAVING equipment has been installed at a Knutsford bowling club.
North West Ambulance Service presented a defibrillator to Crosstown Bowling and Social Club in Knutsford on Thursday, bringing the area’s total to 19.
Representatives of the club and Tatton Probus were in attendance together with members of the Knutsford Community First Responder Trust.
Neville Crossley of the Tatton Probus Group had the idea for a defibrillator at the club after a talk by the Knutsford First Responder Team on emergency life support.
Neville said: “Tatton Probus is a group of retired business and professional men who meet at the Crosstown Bowling and Social Club which is extensively used by many of the more elderly in the community.”
The defibrillator works by giving an electric shock through the chest wall, in some cases of cardiac arrest, to shock the heart back into a normal rhythm and help combat the problem.
The Crosstown Bowling and Social Club was in a residential area not covered by the defibrillators sited in the town by the Knutsford Community First Responder Trust.
Kirstie Brookes, from the bowling club, said: “We are pleased to host this important life-saving equipment, which we hope will benefit our members and the local community.”
Knutsford Community First Responder Trust has provided training to the club and Probus members to use the defibrillator, as well as CPR training, to give them the confidence to act should they face a cardiac arrest. The trust has also provided a wall box to house the defibrillator.
Rob Sharples, Community Resuscitation Development Officer at NWAS, said: “It’s fantastic that the Crosstown Club now has access to a defibrillator.
“Around 30,000 people suffer a cardiac arrest outside of hospital in the UK each year, of which less than 10 per cent will survive to be discharged from hospital. Having more defibrillators available locally for these emergencies is crucial to saving more lives.”
