St Brigid's to become parish with life-saving potential

The family of the late Hugh Lundy, who was a parishioner and a member of the St Brigid’s choir, gave the church a generous donation to fund the lifesaving device in his memory.

The church then was granted the potentially lifesaving machine and received the Call Push Rescue training kit following their successful application for a Nation of Lifesavers Community Package from the charity.

The package contains the innovative kit which includes everything needed to learn CPR in half an hour and the defibrillator.

A portable device, a defibrilator can be used by a member of the public to help restart the heart when someone has a cardiac arrest.

Approximately 1,400 cardiac arrests happen out of hospital in the province every year but currently less than one in 10 people survive.

BHF NI is campaigning for defibrillators to be made more accessible and recognisable to the public and want all young people to be taught CPR and defibrillator awareness at post primary school.

Rector of St Brigid’s Church of Ireland, Rev Bill Boyce said: “We are delighted to have raised enough money to help fund the defibrillator through the read generous donation from the family of our most missed Parishioner Hugh Lundy.

“We are extremely grateful to them for helping us achieve this. The defibrillator will be for the use of the church and all the community organisations who use our building.

“As a centre of our community it is vital to be able to administer lifesaving CPR and defibrillation. It is very important to us as a church that we have these facilities for our parishioners and for those community organisations using the church,” said Rev Boyce.