Missing AED replaced through Whanganui Coastguard’s generosity

Adam Holmes, manager/owner of Unichem Whanganui Pharmacy at Springvale with Mike Carson, president of Wanganui Volunteer Coastguard, next to the AED.

Wanganui Volunteer Coastguard has stepped up and replaced a stolen AED located at the Unichem Whanganui Pharmacy in Springvale.

The donated defibrillator went missing from a window at the pharmacy around Christmas time last year - both the machine and its box had disappeared.

The equipment was donated by the family of Whanganui man Craig Merrick, who died after a heart attack in 2019.

Through the use of an AED (automated external defibrillator), Merrick’s family were able to have a week spent by his side in Wellington’s intensive care unit before his life support was switched off.

Merrick lived around the corner from the pharmacy and the defibrillator has been on its window since 2020.

Unichem covers the costs of maintenance and checks for the machine.

Adam Holmes, manager/owner of Unichem Whanganui Pharmacy, said, “A big thank you goes to the Coastguard for replacing the AED.”

President of Wanganui Volunteer Coastguard, Mike Carson, has been in the Coastguard for over 20 years.

“One of our skippers, Kevin McKenna [also with about 20 years’ service to Coastguard], lives close by and heard that the AED had been stolen, so he brought that information to the Coastguard Committee,” he said.

“We happened to have a spare unit as we’d just had an upgrade for our building’s AED. McKenna suggested we could support the community by donating it to Unichem. We all thought it was an awesome idea, we fully backed it and now Unichem has a new AED, it’s been there for a few weeks.

“Communities are really important, where people can support them, that’s just awesome. Coastguard is part of the community. We’re always looking for new recruits - on the boat or on the committee as radio operators. We provide a valuable community service.”

What is an AED?

An AED is a device that gives an electric shock to a person when their heart has stopped, to get the heart moving again and back into rhythm.

The brief electrical current through the heart spurs the body’s natural pacemaker to re-establish a proper rhythm.

“We find it really valuable on the Coastguard,” said Carson. “We have two of them, one in the building and one on the vessel. We see it as a valuable piece of kit.”