The auxiliary nurse has been on a crusade to help reduce the number of cardiac arrest fatalities in her local area.
Working in the health service, Fiona McCarthy knows just how important defibrillators are in her local area.
North Belfast has one of the highest rates of coronary heart disease and heart attacks in Northern Ireland.
So Fiona, a community representative who also works as an auxiliary nurse, has been on a crusade to help reduce the number of cardiac arrest fatalities in her local area.
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For the past three years, she has been introducing and organising the need for defibrillators at strategic points throughout North Belfast, raising all of the funds from various donors right across the community.
In the case of a cardiac arrest, if a defibrillator is used within three to five minutes, survival rates can jump from around 6% to 70%. Fiona said it’s vitally important to have one in the area to help save lives in an emergency.
The local Workers Party representative maintains all the defibrillators which are registered with the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service, and as a result receives a notification every time one is used.
“As an auxiliary nurse at the Royal Victoria Hospital, I know defibrillators save lives and how much they’re needed. Back in 2023 I thought it would be good to get one in the area because there were none,” Fiona told Belfast Live.
The first defibrillator was placed outside Coopers Chemist on the Oldpark Road in April 2023 after a fundraising campaign from the local community to have one of the life-saving devices installed in the area.
Fiona added: “It was a neighbour of ours who needed it one night, and 999 said there was one at the top of Ardoyne, but it was gone. So my husband said we should fundraise to try and get one to install in the community.
“Between the two of us, we put £500 towards it and the community contributed the rest. The community were very good at chipping in to get this secured and to have one of the life-saving devices installed in the area.
“There was one guy that went into the off licence and he fainted, fell back and cracked the whole back of his head. They rang the ambulance and the paramedics told him to use the defibrillator and they used the defibrillator on him and kept him going until the ambulance arrived and got him to the hospital.
“He died about a week later, unfortunately, but because the defibrillator was used on him, they were able to donate his organs and he saved two more lives.”
Fiona added: “We’re up to five defibrillators now in North Belfast and they have saved quite a few lives. We’re hoping to have another one in early spring and I’m looking to put that in the Shankill area.
“And we have a bleed kit which is quite new and the first one in Northern Ireland it’s for any trauma incidents so the likes of car accidents, bike accidents, stabbings, anything like that.
“It’s the same procedure as a defibrillator – you ring the ambulance, they give you the code and when you have the code to work on this person, there’s the proper bandages and stuff for a bleed to stop it until the ambulance arrives.
“That’s up about a year and while it hasn’t been used, which is a good thing you know, I want the community to know it’s there.
“I keep saying that’s enough and not doing anymore but you just keep going. I feel very proud when I see the lives that they’re saving and also working in the hospital ward, like it’s nice to know that there is life because these items are in place.”
If someone has a cardiac arrest the most important steps to take are:
- Call 999
- Once emergency services have been called, CPR or Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation should be administered as soon as possible, if it hasn’t been already.
- The emergency services will be on their way and you should be starting CPR, but now’s the time to use the defibrillator.
- Use the defibrillator – this can shock the heart back into a regular rhythm or re-start the heart if it has stopped altogether.
Video: Justin Kernoghan
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