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ISSUE 054
Friday 20th July 2018
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LIFESAVING GIFT
A LOCAL walking footballer, whose life was saved by a defibrillator, is to be given a unit which he can donate to any organisation in the Costa Blanca area. The gift has been made by the Manchester-based defibshop.co.uk, after 68-yearold Stuart Richie(pictured on the back row, extreme left) from Pinar de Campoverde, collapsed during a break in a game back in May for the Pinar-based Portobello Bar Walking Football Club.
by Alex Trelinski
Ex-nurse Lorraine Connor had been refereeing the match at the Pilar de la Horadada sports centre, and performed CPR on Stuart, as well calling in the defibrillator, which the team had bought from the English company last year. Stuart was rushed to Alicante General Hospital, and then Elche’s Vinapolo hospital, which has a specialist cardiovascular unit, which performed a triple heart by-
pass operation on him. Stuart’s consultant Eduardo Tebar said:-”It was the sharp action of his teammates and the use of the defibrillator that had saved his life.” A spokesperson for defibshop said that as a result of Stuart’s experience, two other sports clubs in the area had been supplied with defibrillators, emphasising the need to have such units available in public places. The Pinar area appears to be a hotspot for defibrillators,
with local British bar, The Rusty Nail, raising over six thousand euros back in 2017 to buy three units, with the Pilar de Horadada council buying more machines to install across the municipality. It’s in stark contrast to an area like the Orihuela Costa, further north, where no defibrillator units are available in busy tourist and public areas, and where a nine-yearold British boy died from a cardiac arrest on Cala Bosque beach in April.