A defibrillator that was installed last year in a popular city centre pub was used to save two lives within a single month earlier this year.
The Grapes, a renowned pub once frequented by the Beatles in Liverpool's Cavern Quarter, installed a defibrillator in their premises last year, and within hours it had saved it's first life. Yet, even more astonishingly, this March the device was used twice, saving the lives of two men in two separate incidents just three weeks apart.
On 5 March, a man suffered a cardiac arrest in the vicinity of the pub, but luckily emergency services were able to access the Grapes' registered defibrillator to save his life. Then, less than three weeks later, the device was used to resuscitate a man who'd had a heart attack near to the pub.
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These two lives saved bring the total of lives saved by that single defibrillator to four. Karen Strickland, manager of the Grapes, told the ECHO that when her bosses decided to install the defibrillator she didn't realise how important it would eventually become.
Karen said: "Two police came running in and ran straight to it, because you have to explain exactly where it is when you register it. Someone had collapsed over the road.
"It was amazing, I was just gob-smacked. It's only a little thing up on the wall. It's right where everyone sings.
"We got it just before covid so we couldn't put it up or anything. But when we opened the pub back up we put it up and registered it with the Red Cross.
"You wouldn't believe, when we put it in and registered it, it was in the afternoon at around 1.30pm. Then at around 11pm that night it was used to saved a life.
"It's saved four lives so far. When the police or paramedics are in the area they just go online to see where the nearest defibrillator is.
"Every time it gets used we have to re-register it and we have to buy the pads again, which cost £110 every time. But £110 isn't a lot for someone's life, is it.
"It's brilliant because you know it'll be saving someone and you just feel great. All my staff and everyone just couldn't believe it the first night.
"I think we should all have them. I think they should be everywhere."
