The tragic death of 47-year-old Bridlington man Richard Murton has inspired his wife to teach life-saving skills at their oldest son’s school on Restart a Heart Day.
Shonagh Murton is one of over 650 Yorkshire Ambulance Service staff and volunteers who will be teaching cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) at 100 secondary schools across the county today.
The event will always have a particular significance for Shonagh, an Urgent Care Practitioner in the Vale of York area, for her husband suffered a cardiac arrest while watching their youngest son play football just three weeks before Restart a Heart Day in 2019.
Despite the efforts of two bystanders who carried out CPR and the fast response of the ambulance team which resulted in Richard being resuscitated, he suffered another cardiac arrest and sadly died.
Shonagh, who lives in Bridlington with her sons Oakley, 10, and Archie, 15, wants everyone to have the confidence to carry out CPR.
Only days after her husband’s death, Shonagh kept her promise to teach her son Archie and other students at Headlands School in Bridlington how to perform CPR on Restart a Heart Day and she is looking forward to returning to the school today to pass on her life-saving skills to even more pupils.
Shonagh said :
“We decided to stick to our plans for Restart a Heart Day just after Richard died and we got a lot out of the day. We understood how important it was and that by giving students the skills and confidence to do CPR we could help to prevent others from having to go through what we have been through,”
Today Shonagh will be delivering training at Headlands School, she says it's important that CPR treatment is started as soon as possible and that as many people as possible know how to do it.
Over the last eight years on Restart a Heart Day, Yorkshire Ambulance Service has provided free CPR training to more than 151,000 youngsters at 82% of the secondary schools across Yorkshire. Last year the usual face-to-face training was replaced with online sessions which will be held throughout the day on Friday.
Currently in the UK, less than one in ten (8.6%) people survive a cardiac arrest. In Norway, where CPR is taught in schools, that figure is (25%). If that rate could be replicated in the UK it would mean an additional 100 lives could be saved each week - the equivalent of approximately 5,000 every year.
Jason Carlyon, Community Engagement Manager with Yorkshire Ambulance Service, said:
"less than 10% of people who suffer a cardiac arrest outside hospital survive, partly because they don’t receive early CPR and defibrillation but together we can change that statistic.
“Anyone can learn CPR and anyone can use those skills to save a life. If you see someone collapsed and not breathing, call 999 and start chest compressions straight away to ensure that blood keeps pumping around patient’s body. Without that early intervention, it becomes increasingly difficult for our paramedics to achieve a good outcome.”
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