Pirimai community receives St John gift

Receiving a defibrillator from St John educator Cody Booth (centre) and ASB community banker Diana Moyle is Engage Church Community Trust trustee John Dobbs. PHOTO: PAUL TAYLOR

It may have been a long time coming, but it was well worth the wait, says Engage Church Community Trust trustee John Dobbs.

Pirimai residents are the latest community to receive an automatic external defibrillator (AED) from Hato Hone St John, and John says the community is thrilled to have got this project across the line.

"We are all very delighted for this to happen as we have sought a defibrillator for the community for some time and the generosity of St John in meeting this need is to be applauded. To have St John make this generous gift to us means a leg up for our community. Should a heart attack emergency arise, we now have the means to potentially save a life by being able to act quickly."

Hato Hone St John National 3 Steps for Life and GoodSAM programme lead Cody Booth, presented the AED to representatives of retailers, kindergarten, Birthright, the Residents Association and church members, along with a short lesson on how to use it. The defibrillator will be stored in the dairy.

"We are delighted that Neelish from the Pirimai Dairy now has the defibrillator accessible at his shop. This proved the best location due to the 12 hour days the dairy is open to the public."

John says the nearest defibrillator was around 3km away.

"My personal mission on behalf of our community trust was to seek to provide a defibrillator for the Pirimai community and have this located within the shopping centre. A number of potential sources were tapped and in the end we heard St John would gift a defibrillator, to our absolute delight. These latest devices are around $2500 so it is a significant gift and will be a wonderful asset for the shopping centre and Pirimai community."

This latest AED gift comes on the heels of donations to Bledisloe School, Mangateretere School and Napier's Sacred Heart College. While the above donations have come about because of St John identifying schools in the area that are ideal locations to house an AED, Cody says the Pirimai community were proactive in asking how they could get one "which was incredibly encouraging".

"Only one in 10 people are expected to survive a cardiac arrest but a person's chances of surviving increased by 44 per cent where an AED was to hand. However, those chances fell by 10 per cent each minute an AED is not used," he says.

Any school or organisation that is interested in receiving an AED and CPR education should email 3stepsforlife@stjohn.org.nz