The British Heart Foundation (BHF) and The Football Association (The FA) are calling on grassroots and amateur football clubs in Manchester to help save more lives from cardiac arrests by installing lifesaving defibrillators.

The BHF and The FA have already helped part-fund and place around 600 defibrillators at grassroots clubs across the country and are now inviting applications from clubs operating within the National League System, Women’s Pyramid of Football or Charter Standard Programme for a further 900 available.

Research shows that over 90% of sudden cardiac arrests in young athletes happen either during or immediately after exercise and those with an inherited heart condition can be up to three times as likely to suffer a sudden cardiac arrest if they participate in intensive or strenuous exercise.

At least three fatalities occurred during football matches or training this year in England due to cardiac arrest, including former England international Ugo Ehiogu who died whilst working as coach at Tottenham Hotspur FC. A cardiac arrest is when a person’s heart stops pumping blood around their body and to their brain. It causes the person to fall unconscious and stop breathing, or stop breathing normally.

For every minute without CPR and defibrillation, a person’s chance of survival decreases by around 10 per cent. A defibrillator is an automatic device that can be used by the public to shock the heart back into a normal rhythm during cardiac arrest. By performing CPR and using a defibrillator until an ambulance arrives, you can help double the victim’s chance of survival.

There are around 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in England every year. However, fewer than one in ten people survive.

You can apply for a defibrillator by visiting:
www.footballdefibs.org