AN EAST Cornwall village is set to have life-saving equipment installed for public use, thanks to a village paramedic swapping his ambulance for running trainers after taking part in the London Marathon and raising thousands of pounds.

Stoke Climsland resident and operations officer with the South Western Ambulance Service Ben Mayhew took on the challenge of running 26.2-miles in a bid to raise enough money to have a defibrillator installed in Stoke Climsland.

Ben ran the marathon for charity FLEET (Front Line Emergency Equipment Trust), which supports the emergency teams in Cornwall and has an aim to have installed 100 public access defibrillators across Cornwall by the end of 2015.

Ben is not an avid runner but has completed a marathon in the past — 17 years ago.

He said: 'I had run a marathon before in 1998 but I just woke up one morning and said to my wife "I think I need to do a marathon again". By that time places in the marathon had already filled up so I got a place to run with a charity.'

Ben's target was to raise £3,000 — the cost of a public access defibrillator. He said for his previous marathon he had to raise half that amount and found it very difficult, but this time he had no problem raising the amount thanks to the generosity of the people of Stoke Climsland.

'Fundraising is really hard, but I was really well supported by the village. It soon became really easy and I managed to raise the amount through donations from local people, businesses and local organisations and the Post Office held collection buckets. I had really great support from everybody.

'For my last marathon it took so long to raise half this amount but this time the people of Stoke Climsland have made it so much easier because they have been so generous.'

Ben ran the marathon in April in a time of four hours and 41 minutes, which he was very pleased with.

He said he had spoken to FLEET earlier this week and had been told that the defibrillator for Stoke Climsland was in the latest order so should be arriving soon.

The defibrillator will be linked into the ambulance control centre so when someone calls 999, it will unlock the defibrillator box for ten minutes.

Ben said: 'I work in healthcare so I know first hand the benefit of early defibrillation. The machine is totally automatic — it tells the user exactly what to do and where to put the pads and whether it actually needs to be used or not. There is no way that it can be used inappropriately on someone whose heart is working.

'The quicker the heart can be restarted after it has stopped, the better. It will save lives.'