FOUR Riverway businesses have clubbed together to install a community defibrillator on the industrial estate.

More than 30,000 people suffer a sudden cardiac arrest, either at home or in public, in the UK every year.

If a defibrillator is used, and CPR is correctly performed within five minutes, the chances of survival rise to 74 per cent.

Otherwise, survival rates drop to just 6 per cent.

Lifeline Fire and Security director, Jean Lee, and Medina Foodservice managing director, Steve Ross, said it was those statistics that led them to reach out to neighbouring businesses Buywise and Premier Ford to help fund the new unit.

Jean said: “Having access to a defibrillator can help to improve survival outcomes for sudden cardiac arrest, so I felt it was our social responsibility to provide a defibrillator for the local community.”

Lifeline staff members Cindy Newnham and Ann Goldsmith have attended a CPR and defibrillator training course at the Isle of Wight Chamber of Commerce, to learn how to use the equipment.

The defibrillator, outside the Lifeline office, has been registered with the local ambulance station and added to the HeartSafe location map.

Louise Walker, head of ambulance training and community response services at the Isle of Wight NHS Trust, said: “I would like to genuinely thank Lifeline, Medina Foodservice, Buywise and Premier Ford for investing in this lifesaving piece of equipment.

"Our extended appreciation goes to Lifeline for installing and housing the defibrillator in an outside wall box, kindly donated by the British Heart Foundation, making it available to the community 24/7."