The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
A Spalding filling station has its own defibrillator thanks to the fundraising effort of a staff member.
The Applegreen site on the A16 took delivery of the life-saving equipment this week after supervisor Kieran Vertannes started raising money in June.
The new piece of kit is voice activated and literally ‘talks’ users through the procedure.
“It is very easy to use and anyone can use it should they need to,” he said.
Kieran (pictured above) suffered a heart attack at work in 2019 and spent three weeks in hospital recovering.
Applegreen joined forces with The Blood Trust and hopes to have a device in each of its 100-plus sites across the country.
Kieran, who lives at Moulton Chapel, arrived for his shift in 2019 at 10.45am and was in an ambulance by 11.25am.
He said he thought he had indigestion, and the first he knew of a problem was when a neighbour came into the filling station and told him he looked awful.
“When I got a pain down my arm, we decided to ring 101 and they told me they thought I was having a heart attack and an ambulance was already on its way,” he said.
He was initially taken to the Pilgrim Hospital in Boston before being transferred to a specialist heart unit at Lincoln.
“I have always been quite a positive and optimistic person but I am so grateful for the care there and from my family, especially my wife who is my rock.”
All Applegreen stores sold special fundraising cookies for £1 each to help raise money to achieve the ambition of one defibrillator at each site.
