Learn to save a life for gold coin donation

Murgon local ambulance secretary Kerry Baldwin knows first-hand the importance of CPR lessons.

TAKE THE TIME: Murgon Local Ambulance Committee members Kerry and Bob Baldwin teach CPR lessons across the South Burnett. Picture: Will Hunter

MURGON local ambulance secretary Kerry Baldwin knows first hand the importance of CPR lessons.

Mrs Baldwin had to call 000 for her husband Bob last year for a heart-related issue.

"Three days before, we had been teaching CPR and I did everything exactly as we'd been teaching it,” Mrs Baldwin said.

It is stories like this that keep the local ambulance hosting CPR awareness programs right across the South Burnett.

Mrs Baldwin said the group had hosted CPR training sessions for the past three years.

"The whole idea is to build community resilience,” she said.

"If someone has a heart attack on a property and they collapse into cardiac arrest, it can take half an hour for an ambulance to get there.

"If we can get the CPR going, at least there is a chance.”

For just a gold coin donation, the group will teach the basics of CPR and how to use a defibrillator.

"We will go anywhere there is a small group or an organisation,” Mrs Baldwin said.

"This really is a community service.

"A heart attack is not the end of the world these days, that's why it's really important people know what to do.”

Mrs Baldwin said the ambulance committee wanted people to be confident when it came to an emergency situation.

"Compressions are the first line of defence,” she said.

The CPR sessions run for 90 minutes and are suitable for high school students and adults.

For more information about any of the sessions, you can phone Mrs Baldwin on 4169 0909 or email [e-mail].

Originally published as Learn to save a life for gold coin donation