A medical emergency at a Plymouth café spurred a community group into fundraising for a defibrillator.
During the summer of 2017 a customer at Victoria Park’s Pavilion Café was taken ill and café supervisor Linsey Tomlinson said it was the catalyst to begin a fundraising effort.
“We decided that if something similar happened we wanted to be able to have a defibrillator close by if we needed it,” said Linsey.
Joining forces with Victoria Park Community Project chair, Michelle Quintrell, a plan was formed and after a series of events and raffles £470 of the £970 cost was raised.
The remaining £500 was donated by city councillors from the two wards the park straddles – St Peter’s and the Waterfront and Stoke – as part of their Community Grant funds.
“People have been so generous,” said Michelle. “The money we raised from our very successful summer fair has also helped pay for it.”
HeartSWell, which provides defibrillators to communities across Devon and Cornwall, says that if a defibrillator is used within 3–5 minutes of cardiac arrest, survival rates jump from 6% to 74%.
The defibrillator will be mounted on the side wall of the café in a special outdoor cabinet and a training session is planned for early next year so as many people as possible can be trained to use it.
“The park is extremely popular with dog walkers and families with young children and is used by all parts of our community,” said Michelle.
“It would be wonderful if lots of them could be trained to help if any of us do encounter a medical emergency.”
In the past two years the park has seen almost £35,000 spent on the play area, along with new tarmac, three new raised flower beds and picnic tables, including one which is wheelchair-friendly.
Behind the cafe itself St Andrew’s School have created a butterfly mosaic and there is also a new bug house and caterpillar flowerbeds, installed by Michelle’s husband Alex for the school to fill and plant.
“We would love other schools to get involved with helping to encourage wildlife flourish in our park,” said Michelle.
Stoke councillor Jemima Laing said she was ‘very impressed’ with the group’s fundraising efforts.
“It is wonderful to see a community come together in order to obtain this life-saving piece of equipment,” she said.
“Ward councillors were very happy to use their community fund to support the initiative and I’m looking forward to receiving training to use the defibrillator.”
The free training session will be advertised on both the Victoria Park Community Project’s and the cafe’s Facebook pages.
