Filton Sports & Leisure Centre is giving local residents the chance to learn vital life-saving skills this week, as part of a link-up with the Great Western Air Ambulance Charity (GWAAC), its ‘charity of the year’ for 2013.
During February, GWAAC is running a fundraising initiative called ‘Love Your Air Ambulance’ to raise £250,000 of additional funds for a new Eurocopter EC 135 helicopter in order to replace the ageing Bölkow 105 model that it currently uses. A new helicopter would attend to patients four minutes faster, would allow a mother and child to fly to hospital together and would allow more space for the patient, equipment and mid-air treatment.
In support of this, Filton Sports & Leisure Centre is staging a ‘Save a Heart’ Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) training event on Tuesday 19th February from 10am to 2pm and 4pm to 6pm (on a drop-in basis), to teach vital life-saving skills.
The air ambulance currently attends one cardiac arrest on average per day.
Speaking of their support of the charity, Kelly Pillinger, Assistant Manager at Filton Sports & Leisure Centre said:
“We have raised money for various charities over the years but this time we wanted to pool all our efforts and donate to just one. We chose to support Great Western Air Ambulance as they are local to us and provide such a wonderful service.”
“We are excited and privileged to be helping them raise funds and we would urge all our visitors and customers to get involved in our forthcoming events.”
John Christensen, Chief Executive of GWAAC, said:
“We are delighted that Filton Sports and Leisure Centre have decided to support our cause and hope that the ‘Save a heart’ event is a real success. In 2012, one of our critical care paramedics attended a cardiac arrest related incident at a swimming pool involving a 30-year-old male, which reinforces why it is so important for members of the public to learn such vital life-saving skills.”
For more information about the ‘Save a Heart’ event, please contact Kelly Pillinger by emailing kelly.pillinger@filtontowncouncil.gov.uk or call 01454 866686.
Photo: Staff from Filton Sports & Leisure Centre (FSLC) visit the Great Western Air Ambulance Charity. L-R: Kelly Pillinger (FSLC), Vicki Brown (GWAAC), Pete Sadler (GWAAC) and Sam Scanlan (FSLC).
