Woman saved by CPR has 'another chance at life'
BBCA woman at a concert who survived a cardiac arrest thanks to the fast actions of event staff has encouraged more people to learn CPR.
It comes as South Western Ambulance Service is holding a series of tuition events across the region, teaching basic resuscitation techniques.
A trainer said there were around 14,000 defibrillators in the region and the service wanted more people to have confidence using them.
Esther Baker, who survived her cardiac arrest, said "the reality is if you do nothing they will die" and the quick intervention of others had given her "another chance at life".
Baker was attending a concert at Plymouth Pavilions in 2020 when she began to feel unwell and suffered a cardiac arrest at the age of 51.
She said she "went to the toilets because I felt sick" and she "collapsed into the arms of one of the events team called Peter Bickley" and he and his team "worked on me and saved my life".
"When you survive something like that and you know it was the actions of somebody else - I needed to meet them and thank them."
She said: "When we all met up it was very emotional.
"Getting people to be confident with CPR can save more lives like it did mine.
"Some people are really nervous about intervening but the reality is if you do nothing they will die.
"I've had another chance at life thanks to early intervention."
Andy Collins is a community engagement and training officer with South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT).
He said: "There are nearly 14,000 defibrillators publicly accessible across the South West and it's vital that people have the confidence to use them.
"It's the worst day of someone's life to suffer a cardiac arrest and for bystanders it's really difficult as well.
"We need to give them the confidence to know that their early intervention can make such a great difference in that patient's outcome."
'Low survival rate'
One of the trainers, Adam Wildes, is retired doctor and volunteer community responder.
He said: "We know in this country there's a low survival rate for cardiac arrests outside of the hospital - around 8%.
"But simple training can really improve things. Some countries have 25% survival rates, partly because of better CPR training for the public.
"We've normally got about three to five minutes to intervene in order to give people a much higher chance of surviving.
"Doing this can be really scary so we want to give people the tools to do this almost like they're on autopilot, which can be quite hard with other people getting upset."
