Lanes Group helps Thurrock school protect life with defibrillator donation

Lanes Group is donating a life-saving defibrillator to a school in Essex as part of a national drive to help people in local communities who suffer potentially fatal cardiac arrests.

Stifford Clays Primary School, in Grays, in Essex, is the second school in the UK to be given the equipment as part of the drainage and maintenance specialists’ ‘Protecting Life is Close to Our Heart’ initiative.

Lanes Group will also pay for defibrillator training for five staff and basic life-support training for up to 30 pupils as young as five years old.

The school had previously aimed to purchase its own defibrillator because it fosters particularly close links with vulnerable people in the community – but had found the £1,250 cost prohibitive.

Lanes Group is working closely with Hand on Heart, a national charity set up to raise awareness about sudden cardiac arrest suffered by young people.

Stifford Clays is the first school in Thurrock to receive a defibrillator through the charity. Hand on Heart now expects more local schools to want to obtain the life-saving equipment.

An estimated 12 people aged under the age of 35 die in the UK from sudden cardiac arrest every week, and on average five of those happen in schools.

Stifford Clays Primary School was approached by Scott Tracey, the Health, Safety, Quality and Environmental Manager for Lanes Group’s Rail Division. He lives in Thurrock with his son, Luca, aged eight, attends Stifford Clays School, where he is about to complete Year 3.

Scott Tracey said: “I knew the school had close ties with the community, so would value a resource that provides the ultimate service, saving life. We’re pleased to help a school that is so keen to help others in greatest need. Pupils, teachers, parents and local residents are safer having the defibrillator available if, and, when it is needed.”

“Our aim is to provide defibrillators and training for selected schools across the UK. Protecting good health and personal safety are paramount to the way Lanes Group delivers its service, and community-based defibrillators have been proven to save the lives of many people who have cardiac arrests.”

Stifford Clays Primary School Headteacher Anthony Peltier said: “We are enormously pleased that Lanes Group is helping us in this way. It is a wonderful coincidence to have this opportunity.

“We had wanted to buy our own defibrillator, but increasing pressures on our resources meant that was not possible. With this support, we can help protect the lives of those in the school and the community.”

The school is nine miles from Lanes Group’s London depot and Rail Division headquarters, both located on the same site at Rainham.

It has 780 pupils and nursery school children, aged 2 to 11, and is sited in a community with a high proportion of elderly residents, many of whom moved from the East End of London over the last 50 years.

Anthony Peltier said: “We are a truly open school, with community activities, often involving elderly care groups, in the evening and at weekends. We also put on a Christmas Day lunch for local pensioners.

“We can get the defibrillator provided by Lanes Group out into the community within minutes to help treat a sudden cardiac arrest. It will also be on hand to help save the lives of teachers and pupils if they fall ill.”

The defibrillator funded by Lanes Group can treat small children as well as adults. Eight members of staff will be trained to use it. The school can also nominate children as young as five to have basic life-saving training, which includes advice on recognising when people are unconscious and how to raise the alarm.

In March, St Mark’s RC Primary School, in Swinton, Salford, became the first school to receive a defibrillator and training under Lanes Group’s Protecting Life is Close to Our Heart initiative.

Hand on Heart Charity, based in Salford, Manchester, says national medical records show that more than 600 young people die each year from sudden cardiac arrest, and 270 of those deaths happen in schools.

The charity has distributed more than 550 defibrillators since it was founded, and more than 500 have gone to schools. In one recent success though, a defibrillator it supplied to an arts centre in Manchester was delivered on a Monday, and used to save the life of an elderly man the following day.

Dee Wild, Training and Fundraising Administrator for Hand on Heart, said: “Our experience is that other schools in Thurrock that don’t have a defibrillator will follow the lead taken by Stifford Clays, and also obtain the equipment.

“The defibrillator is so simple it can actually be operated without training. It will provide teachers, parents, pupils and the local community with assurance that all is being done to help people who may suffer a sudden cardiac arrest.

“Essex Ambulance Service can be notified of the location of the defibrillator so they can direct anyone who is helping someone who is having a cardiac arrest in the local area to the school to use their machine.

“We also have defibrillators in schools where staff want to protect a pupil with an underlying heart condition. Yet, it is just as likely that a young friend sitting next to that child who will fall ill, and need the defibrillator first.”