Principal Tim O’Tuachaigh witnessed a student at Gaelscoil Ros Eo in north county Dublin collapse in the school yard.
The nine-year-old boy was thankfully saved by the principal and staff who immediately began CPR and asked for the defibrillator, which was donated by Apache Pizza to the local GAA club in Rush.
According to Newstalk, it took ambulance services around 25 minutes to arrive at the scene and medics stated that the quick response from staff at the school helped save the boy’s life, hence why Tim is now calling for defibrillators to become standard in all schools.
“Generally, schools aren’t supplied with defibrillators as a standard piece of equipment. Any school that has a defibrillator has managed to acquire it somehow – either through fundraising themselves, or sometimes there might be a benefactor.”
He went on to say,
“It’s not a huge amount of money.”
“When I see the result of what happened with the boy in our school, you’re saying to yourself then ‘yeah, that is a good way to spend money’ […] It would be fantastic if it could be looked at [nationwide].”
If a person is in distress or collapses due to a life-threatening abnormal heartbeat, a defibrillator can be used to send a dose of electric current to the heart, often proving to be life-saving.
