The Tom Henson Charity
Charity Reg. No. 1183033
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We are a registered charity based in Bolsover which raises funds to help purchase and place defibrillators into local communities to make them available to anyone suffering a sudden cardiac arrest.
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Why are defibrillators important?
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Less than 1 in 10 people survive an out of hospital sudden cardiac arrest.
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4 out of 5 sudden cardiac arrests occur away from hospital
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There are over 160 sudden cardiac arrests in the UK every day
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The UK ambulance response time to sudden cardiac arrests is 8 minutes
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There is a 10% reduction in the chance of survival for every minute that passes without passes without prompt advanced medical intervention.
Defibrillators are critical to the chance of survival in those early minutes, having one available locally really can save someone’s life before an ambulance has even had the chance to arrive on scene. ANYONE can use a defibrillator and no training is needed, although we appreciate that a familiarisation session can be useful in giving confidence in how to use one.
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In 2018 we lost our eldest son Tom, aged just 23 to a sudden cardiac arrest which we subsequently discovered was caused by an undiagnosed genetic condition he had since birth. His death came completely unexpected as there had been no warning signs at all, and he was seemingly a very fit and active young man.
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This made us think two things: 1) sudden cardiac arrest can happen to anyone at any time without any warning and 2) where were our nearest defibrillators?
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Tom was passionate about football and loved playing it, so we initially held a fundraising football match soon after his passing. This raised a staggering £20,000 which enabled us to buy eight defibrillators plus the cabinets to house them, this also prompted us to become a registered charity. Some of the first defibrillators were sited at Carr Vale, Shirebrook and two in Bolsover, another four were donated to local Community First Responder groups. We continued with our fundraising and was able to assist with siting a defibrillator at The Royal Oak in Whitwell along with many others. This had to be replaced last year and we have since become full guardians for this one meaning regular checks are undertaken.
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We have never matched anything close to the success of that first event, which we know was down to the shock the community felt at his sudden passing, but we have continued with events and raised quite a significant amount over the years.
To date we have helped to provide 34 defibrillators, the majority of which are publicly available and all but 3 are within a 15-mile radius of Whitwell.
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If we are successful in becoming a beneficiary of the LSW, we will be able to make even more defibrillators available locally, which we hope will enable even just one family to avoid going through the devastating loss we have experienced.
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Further to this, for a defibrillator to be most beneficial it needs to be registered on The Circuit, a national database used by NHS ambulance services. Each registered defibrillator has a guardian, someone who is responsible for ensuring it is in working order and that the pads and batteries are in date (they have expiry dates, which if left too long render the defibrillator inoperable until they are replaced).
We are guardians for 23 and we are aware of some publicly available defibrillators in the area which no longer have guardians and are therefore not available for use in an emergency. If successful we would use the funds to replace the cabinets and any equipment inside to make them operable and available again and ensure regular checks are done.