LOCAL volunteers have launched a fund-raising drive to help their bid to install five new pieces of life-saving equipment in the community this year.

Helensburgh Garelochside Rotary Club members, and those involved with the Heartstart group, have created the ‘Save Our Hearts’ campaign aimed at raising enough funds to purchase and install five new defibrillators in under-served areas of Helensburgh and Lomond during 2021.

More than 3,000 people have been trained in CPR over the last five years thanks to the work of Heartstart members, while more than 50 defibrillator units can currently be found across the local area, including 13 in Helensburgh.

In the last two years alone, 30 lives are said to have been saved by people using the units in Helensburgh and West Dunbartonshire, however, the Rotary Club estimates that the defibrillators are used in only 10 per cent of the in the community heart attack events that occur.

Over the next 10 years the plan is to increase that figure to at least 50 per cent - saving five times more lives.

A message from rotary club member Henry Boswell, posted on the GoFundMe fund-raising page, said: “To achieve this goal we need three things: step change the awareness of defibrillator locations within our community - we have an app for this; train another 3,000 community members in CPR and the use of our defibrillators, so they have the confidence to use them; and every year increase the number of defibrillators in our community.

“In 2021 our goal is to put five new defibrillators into under-served areas of our community. They cost approximately £1,500 each to purchase and install.

“We’ve had eight-year-olds and 80-year-olds saving lives, and with our exceptional group of trainers we deliver the highest quality training for free.

“Help us Save Our Hearts in the community by donating now - you never know when you, a family member, a friend or colleague will need this life-saving capability.”

Every year in Helensburgh and Lomond more than 200 members of the community are estimated to suffer a heart attack at home, in the street, at work, or out doing their normal everyday business.

Defibrillators ensure patients who have suffered a cardiac arrest have the best chance of surviving until emergency services arrive to stabilise them and take them to hospital; once in hospital, a person who has suffered a heart attack is said to have an 85 per cent chance of surviving.

Helensburgh Garelochside Rotary Club is hoping to raise £7,500 for the five new community defibrillators; to donate to the appeal, visit gofundme.com/f/helensburgh-garelochside-rotary-heartstart-fund.