Cardiac arrest survivor teacher Faye Bullock had her life saved by an AED

Cardiac arrest survivor teacher Faye Bullock with principal of Kaitoke School, Vanessa Duncan, standing next to the AED.

Cardiac arrest survivor teacher Faye Bullock had her life saved by an AED.

She easily convinced the Kaitoke School principal of the need to have one at the school.

“I spoke with Vanessa Duncan and suggested maybe we could fundraise to purchase an AED for Kaitoke School,” said Faye.

Vanessa looked on the AED app and found the closest devices were at Durie Hill School or Whanganui Airport.

“It was too far, especially when someone’s life is in danger,” she said.

Vanessa applied to the Lion Foundation after looking at the grants available.

“They gave us the full cost of the AED, $3616, as a grant. That was amazing.

“The idea of the AED is that it’s available 24/7 to the community. It’s mounted on the outside of the building. I think this aspect helped with the grant being successful.

“The school itself paid for the case it is mounted in, it was mounted on the wall by one of the parents, builder David Brown. We get great support from our community at Kaitoke.

“At the end of last year, we got Red Cross out to the school, and everybody in the street to do CPR training. Red Cross talked about AEDs.

“As a school, we are pretty proud to support our local community with our AED available 24/7,” she said.

Kaitoke School children just had training the previous week with St John, which did a session with every class.

“The 5-year-olds did first aid,” said Vanessa. “The older children were taught CPR and how to react, by dialing 111 and running for help.”

Faye thinks CPR and AEDS go together.

“I hope one day it helps to save someone else’s life,” she said. “We all need the knowledge of CPR and the training so that we know how to go about it in an emergency.

“I’d had a refresher course just three months prior to it happening to me. It can happen to anyone of any age. I think AEDs need to be in every school, every sporting facility. Children from a young age need to be learning to do CPR.”

If they’re too young to do CPR, children should know what to do if someone is unconscious on the ground and emergency response for seeking help.

“Even a young person can save a life. The AEDs should be in all schools as of right” Faye said. “People think that having a cardiac arrest is a heart attack. A heart attack is not a cardiac arrest - this is when your heart goes out of rhythm.

“The AED will get it back into a pattern. A heart attack can lead to a cardiac arrest. I never imagined it would happen to me,” Faye said.