Starting a chain of heart survivors

Noosa River is now has defibs to help save lives

Rotary's Darryl Dent, Lis Blake, Phil Bradford and Tess Alexandroff with one of the two new automatic lifesavers. Picture: Peter Gardiner

EVERY day along the Noosa River possibly hundreds of potential heart attacks walk, run, cycle or paddle on by and that has been a major concern for AED access campaigner Lis Blake.

But now the missing links in the automated external defibrillator-inspired chain of survival are in place at T Boats and the Noosa Boathouse thanks to a community collaboration.

Lis is the Noosa-based mother of Heart Safe Australia advocate and former ironman champ Guy Leech and runs her own defib awareness Facebook page Putting Heart Into Business. She has enlisted the support of Rotary Club of Noosa via Tess Alexandroff and Noosa Boathouse owner Phil Bradford for a 50-50 purchase, one of the AEDs now stored at the entrance of the eatery. As well Rotary received a contribution from T Boats for a defib at its hire business.

"Lis talked to me about needing to get these defibs down on the river. She was very concerned about the river being a potential hot spot (for heart emergencies),” Tess said.

"It makes sense and this place (Noosa Boathouse) is very important because it opens so early and closes so late.”

Lis said it is so busy along this popular walkway and recreation hub and until these latest additions, the nearest defib was upriver at the Noosa Yacht and Rowing Club. When people are having heart attacks, using a defib within three minutes can increase the chance of survival by 70 per cent.

"People think it just happens to old people but it doesn't - the stats on young people (having heart attacks), it's scary.”

She said since Heart Safe Australia teamed up with the "parkrun” - a weekly national 5km fun run program - two lives have been saved by defibs across the country.

"It's amazing - it gives me goose bumps really.”

Phil said: "The message to get across is how easy they are to use - it really is as simple as opening up and turning it on and then it goes through the process.”

Lis added: "Hopefully we don't need to use it - that's the bottom line, but it's there.”

People can locate their nearest defib location via their smart phones via the PulsePoint AED app.