CHILDREN from Shebbear College joined thousands of young people around the UK to take part in ‘Restart a Heart’ day on Tuesday, October 18.

The pupils received training from South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWAST) and learnt how to help restart the heart of someone who had suffered a cardiac arrest.

The restart a heart project works with the support of The British Heart Foundation, St John Ambulance, and The British Red Cross, along with all regional ambulance services.

The aim was to train more than 100,000 young people how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in one day.

Currently in the UK, less than one in ten people (8.6%) survive an out of hospital cardiac arrest. In Norway, where CPR is taught in schools, the survival rate is 25%, which means an additional 100 lives could be saved each week, the equivalent of approximately 5,000 every year.

The pupils at Shebbear College will now know what do to if someone has a cardiac arrest, which a college spokesperson described as ‘a truly invaluable day of learning’.

Thanks were expressed to Maggie Hogarth for her invaluable assistance.

Eligible secondary schools in the UK are entitled to a free ‘Call Push Rescue’ training kit worth more than £1,000 from The British Heart Foundation.

To register a school or for more information, visit www.bhf.org.uk/heart-health/nation-of-lifesavers/call-push-rescue/schools