Scottish ambulance service. Samantha Grieve

Wed, Nov 21st 2018 at 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Andrew Clark gets a lesson


Members of the club were thoroughly entertained and educated by an interesting talk and practical demonstration of using a defibrillator by Samantha Grieve from the Scottish Ambulance Service.

Her role covers the East of Scotland and it was interesting to hear that the defibrillator in the Kingsknowe Golf Club was placed there by her.

She assured members that the defibrillator was easy to use and gave verbal instructions on how to use it every step of the way. It could be used in cardiac arrest when a patient was unresponsive but not during a heart attack when a patient had pains and/or felt dizzy. Even if used in the second case the machine could determine that it shouldn’t be used and would give appropriate verbal instruction.

Samantha goes round schools at all levels and said that the Vinnie Jones advert with ‘Staying Alive’ was very successful, estimating that 35 lives a year have been saved as a result of this. Staying Alive however has been superseded by the songs ‘500 Miles’ and ‘Baby Shark’!

Samantha gave some startling figures about cardiac arrest saying that although the chances of surviving a cardiac arrest was 85% the actual figure was only 4% in the UK. In some places around the world this can be as high as 60-70%
The importance of defibrillators has been recognised by having all fire appliances now carrying them and a campaign to have them installed in more and more locations, including schools. In Penicuik, a group of community responders has been set up and Samantha’s dad was one of the first of benefit from this! The quickest response time of a responder has been 30 seconds.

Samantha proceeded to give some good advice for anyone who becomes involved in a situation where a defibrillator is used. These included concerns over using the machine on women – better to save her life than worry about attaching the machine, phoning 999 immediately if it is a suspected heart attack and shouting ‘stand back or it won’t work’ when relatives or others are around the patient.

An app is being developed so that members of the public can find out quickly where defibrillators are kept.

Finally, Andrew Howard thanked Samantha for an excellent and interesting presentation which provided some practical advice that could potentially be life-saving.

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