New life saving defibrillators in Buckingham

What is an AED?

An automated External Defibrillator (AED), or defib as many people know it, is an electronic portable device that shocks the heart to try and restore its natural rhythm when someone is in sudden cardiac arrest.

It will analyse the patient’s heart rhythms and, if appropriate will instruct you to press the “shock” button. The device will tell you what to do at each stage.

Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is a condition in which the heart stops beating effectively.

Sadly, the patient will die very quickly unless immediate action is taken by a bystander to start CPR, to call an Ambulance on 999 and give a shock using the nearest AED.

Anyone, including children, can have a Cardiac Arrest.

In the 2022 published statistics, South Central Ambulance Service received 4,890 Cardiac Arrest calls, of which 80.0% were to a place of residence.

A defibrillator was used in just 8.5% of cases. (Source - Warwick University OHCAO study).

Last year we installed a new defibrillator in Overn Crescent.

We are very pleased to announce that we have just installed two further AEDs in Buckingham:

a) Page Hill Avenue at the Junction with Hilltop Avenue (at the eastern/roundabout end)*

b) At Linden General Store in Burleigh Piece

*In partnership with Tesco & AEDdonate

All our AEDs are registered with The Circuit, a national database of defibrillators maintained by the British Heart Foundation. This information is available to all the UJ Ambulance Services.

You too can see the location of the 10 nearest AEDs on the website “Defibfinder.uk”.

However, in an emergency you must ring 999 - the Ambulance call handler will be able to direct you to the nearest AED to the incident, and give you the code for the cabinet lock.

We are actively negotiating to install a further AED on the new St Rumbolds Field estate, off Tingewick Road. This will cover about 400 households. We expect to have more news on this site shortly.

So, why are we doing all this?

Time is critical - the closer you are to a defibrillator the better the possible outcome for your patient.

You don’t need any prior training to use an AED and the Ambulance call handler will talk you through what you need to do. You cannot make the patient worse – you could save a life.

We are often to be found out and about delivering demonstrations.

During the summer we were at the ‘Celebrate Buckingham Day’ event and showed over 100 people how to:

Quickly check a casualty for cardiac Arrest

Call for help/ring 999

Perform immediate CPR

Collect a nearby defibrillator and position the pads to deliver the life-saving shock

We will be at Tesco main store in London Road again on Saturday 26th October doing further Restart a Heart demonstrations – so come and talk to us and have a go at doing CPR and using the AED.

If you want more information, or to arrange a demonstration for your local group, just give us a shout via our Facebook page: Buckingham AED Project