School in Belper receives life-saving heart defibrillator from former pupil
2022-10-17
Medical device is donated by staff at Hartshorne Group
A SCHOOL has received a life-saving heart defibrillator after a former pupil and his workmates clocked up thousands of hours of healthy exercise to raise funds.
Belper School & Sixth Form Centre accepted the vital medical device from former Belper schoolboy Ian Ward of Hartshorne Group, which supplies and services Volvo commercial vehicles.
Headteacher Nick Goforth said: "We're very grateful to Ian and his colleagues. Heart defibrillators are a vital piece of medical equipment and this upgrades our old one, which was due for replacement. It was also wonderful to welcome a former student back to the school!"
Ian, 36 , who is manager of the Hartshorne depot in Alfreton, says he was greatly impressed by how much the school has developed since his time there as a pupil.
"It was great to go back and meet with some of the new teachers," said Ian. "There are lots of additional buildings and I was very impressed by the modern facilities. It's obvious that the teaching staff are very dedicated to what they do."
The Hartshorne depot has strong links to the school. In addition to Ian, another member of its staff has a daughter who is currently a pupil.
Heart defibrillators are portable battery powered devices that come with voice instructions so that they can be used by anybody to restart a person's heart in an emergency. Around 30,000 people a year suffer a heart attack in the UK that occurs somewhere other than a hospital.
Hartshorne Group has been raising funds to install defibrillators within the community as part of its Healthy Heart Campaign. The company donates £1 for every hour of physical exercise that staff record via an app. So far across the company's nine depots in the Midlands, its staff have clocked up over 6,000 hours of exercise covering over 30,000 miles, which is more than the circumference of the planet.
Belper School & Sixth Form Centre is the sixth school in the region to benefit by receiving a defibrillator as a result of the campaign.
PICTURE: Pupils at Belper School with the new heart defibrillator, along with Ian Ward (back row on right), Headteacher Nick Goforth (back row in centre) and Hartshorne's Operations Director Phil Brookfield (back row on left).