Laois community effort to save lives backed by Electric Picnic

Stradbally launched two new publically accessible defibrillators in the town last Friday and are busy training in a group of 30 first responder volunteers in the town who will be on call 24/7.

Stored away in safety boxes that can easily be opened with a code decided locally, at Supervalu and Simpson's Gala shop, the community is now training a team of 30 first responders in the town who will be on call to help in emergencies.

Noel Ryan pushed this project after he was contacted by Peter Naughton who was researching the number and locations of defibrillators in Laois. It was brought to the attention of Mr Ryan that there was no defibrillator available in Stradbally 24/7.

Mr Ryan is on the Electric Picnic committee and he sourced the funding through the festival. He said €2,000 for the defibrillators has come directly from the money that people in Stradbally pay for festival tickets.

He said there were five defibrillators in Stradbally but none were available after close of business in the evenings and his aim was to get these life-saving machines 24/7.

An appeal was put out in the town for volunteer first responders and 30 local people answered the call. They are now undergoing live saving training thanks to the Order of Malta. They formed the Stradbally Cardiac First Responders committee, Sean Coffey is the Chairperson.

They purchased one defibrillator and two special heated cabinets external to house the special equipment. Local businessman Pat Deegan donated one defibrillator.

Mr Ryan thanked everyone involved in the project.

"We are very grateful to him. We have our first group of volunteers fully trained and certified and another group ready for training. A big thank you to Pat Keegan, Marie and Grace from the Order of Malta for their professionalism.

"We launched our Defibrillators on Friday, June 21 and they are available to the public 24/7. One is at Simpson's Gala and one at Super Valu. Our emergency number is 0851847956 and is manned 24/7.

"A big thank you to our sponsors Brendan and Martina Lynch BM Lynch Construction and Civils, Dolores Byrne DB Graphics, Ann Simpson Gala, Bill Buckley who connected us up free of charge at Super Valu special thanks to Pat Deegan Engineering, Electric Picnic Residents Committee to anyone who helped in any way to get this life-saving equipment up and running," Mr Ryan said. 

READ MORE LEINSTER EXPRESS NEWS HERE.