Sellafield donate two defibrillators to GNAAS

Mark White, senior health and safety advisor, and Graham Young, stakeholder manager, for the SRP project, recently visited our base in Langwathby, Penrith to hand over the devices.

Mark said: “One of my roles is assessing our emergency treatment on site as we’re in an isolated location. I was checking the amount of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) we had, who was trained on them and where they were located, and we decided we needed more.

“Through our supply chain I put a case forward for new defibrillators and we had these two spare that are a slightly older model but we knew that they would be of use to somebody, so we looked at making them available for a charity.”

Health and safety are paramount at Sellafield and all of their staff are provided with training on CPR and how to operate a defibrillator in case they need to use it.

Mark added: “In our job we understand the importance of defibrillators, and this is why we’ve rolled out training to all of our staff. It’s a life skill, so we’ve made sure everyone has the opportunity to get hands-on experience of practicing CPR and knowing how to use a defibrillator.”

The donated defibrillators were presented to GNAAS paramedic Lee Salmon, who is head of operations west at the charity, and will be stored in vehicles used by staff at GNAAS in case they come across an incident that requires one.

Lee Salmon said: “In two separate occasions over the last 12 months Sellafield staff have benefitted from early defibrillation following a cardiac arrest at work and both times our teams have responded and aided the local ambulance service in getting these patients to definitive care in a timely, efficient and safe manner.

“Sellafield have recently replaced many of their AEDs and very kindly decided to donate these two units to GNAAS. Our teams don’t always travel with frontline life-saving equipment, yet can and do come across incidents, so having an AED in the car will be of great help should the worst happen.”