TRIBUTES have been paid, and heartfelt thanks expressed, to all those who have contributed towards 25 years of community life-saving efforts in Helensburgh and Lomond and beyond.
A quarter of a century of the Heartstart project run by the members of Helensburgh Garelochside Rotary were celebrated this week – as the project looks to return to something approaching ‘normal’ after its activities, along with those of almost every other community group in the area, were put on hold, or at least severely disrupted, by the pandemic.
Since 1996, the Heartstart project has campaigned for and installed public access defibrillators, or PADs, in communities across Helensburgh and Lomond, as well as in West Dunbartonshire and the Trossachs.
Its volunteers have also trained thousands of people in the area in how to operate the life-saving devices – which deliver a small ‘shock’ to people who have suffered a cardiac arrest to get their heart beating once again – as well as teaching all generations how to administer cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, to someone whose heart has stopped beating.
The project’s driving force, Sheenah Nelson, told a meeting this week that the local Heartstart project could not have succeeded without the backing of the volunteers, companies, community groups and supporters who have got behind the project since its inception.
“Almost 30 lives have been saved as a result of Heartstart,” Sheenah, a former primary school teacher, told a special meeting of the local Rotary club, attended by many people who have played key roles in the project’s success over the years, last Monday.
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“But it’s the training that makes it all possible.
“Every child that came into my class left with the basic skills of knowing what to do if someone suffers a cardiac arrest.
“Before Covid we were reaching 500 children in Helensburgh and Lomond’s primary schools, each year group at Hermitage Academy, as well as the school’s staff – that alone is 2,000 people a year, and that’s before you even start on the GP practices, dental surgeries, golf clubs, bowling greens and police stations where our volunteers have delivered training sessions.
“But it’s all down to the local pennies being spent on a local cause, training local people and saving local lives. That’s what makes it so worthwhile.”
The first Heartstart training course in Helensburgh was held on April 23, 1996, less than two months after the establishment of a local Heartstart group.
Their efforts, and the establishment of a ‘first responders’ group to cover Garelochhead and the Rosneath peninsula, whose volunteers provide vital care and support to casualties in the area while an ambulance is on its way to an emergency call, eventually led to Heartstart and the British Red Cross joining forces with other local groups to set up the Helensburgh and Local District CPR/Defibrillator Association.
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The first PAD in the area, at Helensburgh Golf Club, was used to great effect when Julian Ferguson, a neighbour of the club, suffered a cardiac arrest in his garden in May 2015 and nearby golfers rushed to his aid.
There are now more than 150 ‘defibs’ located across Helensburgh, Lomond, the Trossachs and West Dunbartonshire – all of them locatable in a database compiled by Trossachs Search and Rescue (trossachsdefibrillator.co.uk).
As well as telling Julian’s story in 2015, the following year the Advertiser described how Helensburgh woman Martha Isobel McNeill – known as Ibel – collapsed at a ceilidh following the Luss Highland Games, but was revived by staff at the village’s Loch Lomond Arms Hotel using the PAD on the premises.
We’ve also featured many of the new additions to the area’s PAD network over the last few years, including units at Helensburgh Bowling Club, Garelochhead Bowling Club, Helensburgh Medical Centre, the Scout and Guide hall in Helensburgh’s John Street and the Inchmurrin Hotel on Loch Lomond, home to the area’s 100th PAD, installed in 2016.
Helensburgh councillor Lorna Douglas told Monday’s meeting: “I know you front a lot of it, Sheenah, but I know there is a fantastic team around you that makes it all happen.
“Like many good things this didn’t just happen overnight – I know it’s a continual effort to get people to buy in and support it, and it is dedication and absolute commitment that have driven the project forward.”
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And while the pandemic may have hit the Heartstart group’s CPR and defibrillator training programme hard, it hasn’t stopped there being a need to save lives in emergencies.
“Covid has brought a lot of problems, for us as for everyone,” Sheenah said, “but 11 of our defibrillators have been used during the pandemic, and to six or seven lives have been saved.
“Cardiac arrests don’t stop during a pandemic, and it’s still essential for the public to learn CPR and to have the confidence to use their life-saving skills.
“It’s the people who have done that and have used those skills to save a life who are the real heroes.
“The power to save a life is in your hands. Please use it.”
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