Help hunt down life-saving defibrillators as part of Yorkshire campaign

Members of the public are being urged to take selfies with the life-saving kit when they are out and about and send them to YAS on social media using the hashtag #YASDefibHunt with details of the device’s exact location.

Some defibrillators are bought with the best of intentions but are not registered with YAS.

READ: Ambulance Service launches life-saving app: How many defibrillators are in Calderdale?It is essential that the Trust knows the locations of all defibrillators so staff in our Emergency Operations Centre can direct 999 callers to them in the event of a patient suffering a cardiac arrest nearby.

Paul Stevens, Head of Community Resilience for YAS, said there are now 3,095 known defibrillators across Yorkshire - an increase of 29% from this time last year - but there are many more which have not been registered on the YAS database.

“We need to make sure that every single defibrillator that is purchased across the county is registered with Yorkshire Ambulance Service so we can ensure they are put to good use in the event of a cardiac arrest,” said Paul.

“We ran the YAS Defib Hunt for the first time last year and as well as finding 41 previously unregistered defibrillators, the campaign also helped us to raise the profile of the importance of these life-saving devices.

"We would urge members of the public to support our YAS Defib Hunt again which will ultimately help us to save more lives.”

READ: Family of former Mayor helps to fund defibrillatorThe location of defibrillators, often in yellow or green cabinets, can sometimes be marked with a white heart on a green background, or they could just be mounted on a wall behind a bar, in gyms, leisure centres, offices, tourist information centres, schools, colleges, railway stations, restaurants - anywhere at all!

Defibrillators are easy to use, easy to carry, provide audible instructions to the user and will not deliver a shock unless it is required. No training is required to use the equipment.

The campaign is being run to mark Shoctober - a national initiative to raise awareness about the importance of defibrillators - and ties in with the Trust’s plans to provide cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training to more than 25,000 secondary schoolchildren on Restart a Heart Day on Tuesday 16 October 2018.

A cardiac arrest occurs when a person’s heart stops pumping blood around their body and to their brain. The earlier a patient can receive CPR and a shock from a defibrillator, the greater their chance of survival.

If you see a defibrillator, take a selfie with it and send it to YAS with details of the exact location (building number/name, street, town/city) and the hashtag #YASDefibHunt