PEOPLE in Okehampton are being urged to take up free training in using a defibrillator to help save lives in the town.

New local charity Oke PADS is raising funds to buy five new defibrillators to go in public places around Okehampton.

The equipment is used to restart the heart when someone has a cardiac arrest.

Trustees James Stevens and Darren Goodwin gave a presentation about the project at Okehampton Town Assembly in the Charter Hall on Monday night.

‘We live in a rural area where ambulance response time can be varied and if someone goes into cardiac arrest, it is down to members of the public to intervene and apply first aid, and ideally use a defibrillator,’ said James.

Okehampton already has two defibrillators in public places, outside Okehampton Primary School and the Pavilion in the Park.

Another has just been installed, for public use, by business Elemental Microanalysis outside its premises in the Exeter Road Industrial Estate.

Locations have yet to be decided for the five additional defibrillators around the town, although one will be going outside the town hall on Fore Street and another possibly outside the parish church.

A number of Okehampton charities have contributed to the equipment.

James said they wanted to encourage Okehampton people to take up the offer of free training.

‘If you can all encourage and stress the importance of coming along to the training, hopefully we can encourage as many people as possible to use them,’ he said.

‘After the training, people will know where they are and feel as feel as confident about using them as they would using a fire extinguisher.’

Darren Goodwin, who is a paramedic, said: ‘People are scared that things might not work, and that it is a tremendous machine that might do some harm to someone who is having a heart attack.

‘But in fact nothing can be scarier than having a cardiac arrest.’

More information can be found at www.facebook.com/Okepads