Vandals are putting lives at risk in areas of Gosport, according to the local coordinator for public access defibrillators — PADs.
The cabinets holding the emergency equipment at the Siskin Centre, Rowner, and St Matthew’s Church, Bridgemary, have been deliberately broken for no apparent reason. The defibrillators, or ‘defibs’, would be difficult to sell and the cabinets do not contain any medications.
"These are life-saving devices," said Alan Parry, co-ordinator of Gosport and
Lee-on-the-Solent Community First Responders.
"Gosport vandals have got to realise that they are putting lives at risk and it may be one of their family."
PADs are accessible to the public in that anyone, having found a person who
has apparently suffered a cardiac arrest and is unconscious, can phone 999 and will be instructed by the emergency controller how to find and open the cabinet.
They will then be told how to use the defibrillator until a first responder or a paramedic arrives.
The PAD at the Thorngate Hall was used just six weeks ago.
And according to Mr Parry, Gosport has the dubious distinction of being the first area to have had a PAD cabinet vandalised.
Both cabinets are now back in use. However, Mr Parry warned: "If this hap-pens again I will have no alternative but to remove the PAD cabinets because I cannot have emergency control sending a person to a vandalised PAD."
Currently there are eight defib cabinets in Gosport and Lee-on-the-Solent at locations such as the Gosport ferry terminal and St Faith’s Church in Lee.
"We were trying to use Gosport as a good example to encourage other areas to have public access defibrillators," Mr Parry told The Gosport Globe.
That includes Portsmouth which does not currently have any.
Information about first aid courses in the local area is available on the St John Ambulance website: www.sja.org.uk.