Keeping the Heart of the Community Beating.
The reality sunk in, had the member of the congregation had their recent heart attack at church on a Sunday morning rather than on the hockey pitch there might have been a very different outcome. For the hockey pitch had an AED nearby while, despite having medical people within the congregation, with no accessible defibrillator in the area medical knowledge alone would not have given them the best chance of survival. Those initial minutes are crucial when a heart stops beating and the availability of an AED can make a dramatic difference to an individuals recovery or indeed lack of.
Two choices were available to the vestry of All Saints Bearsden, to locate a AED within the buildings for the use of hall users and the congregation, or have one outside the buildings ensuring that night or day, 365 days a year, anyone in the community would have access to this life-saving piece of medical equipment should it be needed. An AED requires no medical training and the ambulance service will direct anyone in need of it to the unit when they phone 999 and it is suspected a heart has stopped beating. There is no danger of someone getting a shock if they do not require it as the machine is an intelligent one. After some research it was suggested that this could be an ecumencial project, serving our local community jointly. So along with the other 4 churches local to Bearsden Cross (St Andrew’s RC, Bearsden Baptist, New Kilpatrick CoS and Bearsden Cross CoS) and the Craig Hodgkinson Trust an AED is now located on the outside of our halls with an additional unit also at Bearden Cross Church of Scotland to cover the area around the railway station. On 4th August, John Hodgkinson, father of Criag, members of the local churches and Dave Evans from Physio-Control, the suppliers of AED units joined together to celebrate the siting of the AEDs and to pray that should they ever be needed it may bring hope and peace at that distressing and anxious time.
The response from the local community and businesses has been wonderful, the presents of the machines are well advertised in local shops and people have spoken about how moved they are that the churches care for them this way. While there are cost implications, initially and on upkeep, working ecumenically can lessen these as can contacting the Craig Hodgkinson Trust who can help with the purchase of the unit. We would urge other churches to consider serving their communities in this way, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the yellow AED boxes were as familiar a site on SEC property as the pub sign?
