Local clubs get helping hand to save lives

The Gerringong, Oak Flats and Shellharbour Bendigo Bank branches has given away 50 defibrillators to local businesses and not-forprofit community clubs and organisations.

Gerringong Anglican Church, Gerringong Breakers Football Club, Gerringong RSL sub-branch, Gerringong Rotary, Gerroa Boat Fisherman’s Club and Kiama Junior Knights were some of the 50 organisations that were handed a defibrillator at an event held recently at the HARS Aviation Museum at Shellharbour Airport.

Guy Leech, the founder and CEO of Heart180 who has supplied the defibrillators, shared a chilling message at the event; cardiac arrest doesn’t discriminate.

“Sudden cardiac arrest is the biggest killer in Australia. We lose about 100 people a day,” he says. That figure includes children under 10 years of age.

As a former Australian Iron Man Surf Lifesaving champion and 2007 Celebrity Survivor winner, Guy says heart issues affect even those who are “in the top 1 per cent of fit people for their age group.”

“It can hit anyone,” Guy says. “For every minute after the first three minutes of not having a defibrillator on someone whose heart has stopped, the heart has 10 per cent less chance of kicking over. When you add the 12 to 15 minutes waiting for an ambulance, the chances of kicking that heart over with an electric shock is minimal.”

It is this statistic that Guy based his business off, and it all began when he lost his friend over 7 years ago despite starting CPR straight away.