On August 12th Glyn Whiting, a well-known local artist, rode a 100 mile sportive in aid of Herefordshire Heartstart; raising over £300. Glyn was in contact with Herefordshire Heartstart a couple of days after the event and told us that ‘although the last hour was a bit of a struggle it’s not a bad result!’. We think that Glyn’s efforts on our behalf are amazing and want to say a huge thank you for putting himself through this challenge to raise money for Herefordshire Heartstart.
Glyn’s association with Herefordshire Heartstart came about just over two years ago. In July 2015 Glyn had a cardiac arrest in his sleep. Only the day before he had cycled 100kms and was at peak fitness. After 3 days in an induced coma he came round in Hereford ICU. The medical staff were fantastic and he rapidly improved. It was decided that he should go to Birmingham for a triple by-pass, and have a mini defibrillator fitted to his chest. After 43 days he was fit to return home and begin his rehabilitation. It was through this rehabilitation program, run by Hereford Hospital’s Cardiac Rehab Team that Glyn came across Herefordshire Heartstart.
Herefordshire Heartstart is a voluntary organisation, established in 1996, to teach the people of Herefordshire emergency life support skills. These skills are the actions needed to keep someone alive until professional help arrives. Essential in a rural community such as ours.
Our instructors are volunteers from various walks of life, all with the same notion – to save lives. We don’t get any government or British Heart Foundation funding for our scheme, so every donation is always hugely valuable to us. Every penny really does help us continue teaching these vital lifesaving courses for the people of Herefordshire.
To date, Herefordshire Heartstart has trained over 23,000 people in Herefordshire. We know that skills learned on these courses have saved lives in the county. The courses are FREE, run regularly throughout Herefordshire and only take two hours.
If you would like to find out more about Herefordshire Heartstart; either to participate in one of our life saving courses or to find out about becoming a volunteer please contact Sarah (our coordinator) at info@herefordshireheartstart.org.
