Survivors give video support to defibrillator campaign
Picture: Wendy Cunningham with her swimming club friends
Two cardiac arrest survivors share their stories in videos backing a local defibrillator fundraising campaign by a leading retail group.
Lynda Donaldson (55) from Lisburn, and Wendy Cunningham (42) from East Belfast, are backing the Henderson Group’s Heart of our Community campaign, which will see the installation of over 300 public-access defibrillators outside SPAR, EUROSPAR and VIVO stores in Northern Ireland.
In the first video, which SPAR NI released on their Facebook page this week, Lynda Donaldson describes how she was walking along the street in Saintfield when her heart suddenly stopped beating.
Lynda was saved by school nurse Michelle McAvoy and first aid trainer Phil Batt, who both chanced upon her at the time.
Thanks to their early intervention, using CPR and a defibrillator, Lynda was revived by the time the emergency services arrived on the scene.
Since her cardiac arrest, Lynda has devoted her free time to learning CPR skills, and now teaches them to groups through the Heart Start Programme with the British Heart Foundation. In the video, Lynda, who doesn’t have a medical background, explains that she and her partner, Graham, “had to do the training and teach other people how to do CPR”.
Wendy Cunningham suffered a cardiac arrest while swimming with her club at the Templemore Baths pool, and talks about her new-found passion for life.
Her fellow club member, friend and nurse, along with the trainer at the pool, were able to perform CPR and use a defibrillator over a period of 20 minutes, not giving up until Wendy’s heart started beating again.
In the video, Wendy explains how she was in a coma for three days but her experience has done anything but hinder her passion for swimming and for life.
The videos, commissioned by the Henderson Group for the Heart of our Community campaign, hope to give a final push to the fundraising campaign that has been running for almost three months now.
Bronagh Luke from the Henderson Group said: “When we launched our campaign back in October, we received an incredible response from the public who are passionate about getting 24/7 public access defibrillators into their communities.
“Our retailers have been fundraising with their staff and customers and are very close to their targets. This means that in 2016, we will see the installation of hundreds of new, state of the art, public access and potentially life-saving defibrillators in rural and urban areas across Northern Ireland.”
“We are so grateful to Lynda and Wendy for trusting us to tell their stories.”
“We hope the public watch these videos and are inspired by the experiences shared, and help us to ensure life-saving devices are available for all communities in the country.”
The videos can be viewed on the SPAR NI and EUROSPAR NI Facebook Pages, SPAR Northern Ireland You Tube channel and the dedicated campaign website, www.heartofourcommunity.com.
