Here is an announcement to make your heart beat faster!

Amovate is working with other local community groups to buy from the UK two state-of-the-art defibrillators specifically to benefit the residents up here on Vale da Telha and the surrounding areas.

Several other groups, including the Tuesday quiz players and the Vale da Telha Golf Society have already pledged their financial support, as we begin the process of raising the funds for machines the Bombeiros say will be valuable life-saving aids to what is largely an ageing retirement community.

It is expected that the two defibrillators, and a training machine will cost in the region of €4,500, so all the fund-raising help we can get from everyone in the community will be invaluable to achieve that target.

But ahead of this we have already joined forces with the Bombeiros who have inspired this project, asking Amovate for support in getting it off the ground and launching the drive to buy these lifesaving machines.

One of these will be placed with the Bombeiros for the use of the entire Aljezur region and its 5884 inhabitants, from Odeceixe in the north to Carrapateira in the south.

The other will be kept permanently here on Vale da Telha.

The Bombeiros are keen to establish a corps of volunteers of all different nationalities on VdT to be trained by them, initially in Basic CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), which you may recognise from the Vinnie Jones “Stayin’ Alive” commercials.

Then, they will ask those volunteers who become certified in CPR through this training if any of them wish to be further trained to become part of a group of individuals thus qualified to use the defibrillator kept on Vale da Telha.

The inaugural meeting of what we hope will be a project that becomes a Community-wide exercise will be hosted by the Bombeiros at the Old School House in Vales on Thursday January 9^th when their experts will outline their plans.

They will provide full information, so everyone will know how the programme and the training will unfold.

Then, the Basic CPR training classes operated by the Bombeiros and by Amovate member and retired surgeon Dr David Quinton will begin later in January at a date to be announced.

We hope this project will become a Community exercise supported both by volunteers who become proficient in CPR and the use of the defibrillator, and also financially by everyone joining in the fund-raising activities and making contributions however large or small.

We know there are a number of people living up here who have retired from the nursing and medical professions, and even some former UK police officers, who already have experience in this field.

We would hope these experienced people will be amongst the first to offer their services.

The life-saving defibrillator which is to have a permanent home up here will be kept at the Hotel Vale da Telha at the Pines Roundabout, a central point in the community.

It will be accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the newly-trained volunteers.

Also, of course, several members of the Aljezur Bombeiros also live on Vale da Telha, which means there should always be a trained operator to use the defibrillator whenever an emergency arises that requires its use.

Amovate is to purchase one defibrillator outright from cash currently in our Charity Fund, thanks to the support of our members and friends at our various functions throughout the year.

You will recall that Amovate, working with two UK Charities, recently brokered and part-subsidised financially, the amazing donation of more than €50,000 worth of firefighting and life-saving equipment to our local Bombeiros, something which made newspaper headlines both here and back in the UK.

And within the past couple of weeks some of that equipment has been used to cut people free of their crashed vehicles up here in two serious incidents on Vale da Telha.

We are also providing an expensive and much-needed laptop to a care centre which has looked after a couple of our members in recent months whilst also, in the past two or three years, supplying nine wheelchairs to Portimao Hospital and funds to the Madrugada Charity to buy a ripple bed to ease the suffering of long-term bedridden patients.

Now, we plan to turn our 2014 Charity Fund into a drive for the two defibrillators, one of which is to be presented to the Bombeiros who currently have just the one to share amongst their four ambulances and two support vehicles.

There is absolutely no question these machines will save lives over the coming years—perhaps even yours, or a member of your family.

So we are asking all of you that if you think you can help in some way could you please attend the January 9^th meeting at Amovate when the Bombeiros will outline and explain the project.

The initial Basic CPR training will make sure you can instantly and automatically answer these questions:

• Do you know what to do if someone next to you collapses, perhaps suffering a heart attack or some other serious medical condition?
• Can you make the difference in saving the life of that person?
• Do you know the fastest way to get the Bombeiros onto the scene to help you and the victim?
• Do you know the information that you will need to relay to them to ensure everything possible is done quickly and correctly?

We need you to turn up and offer your help, because Dr Quinton and the Bombeiros can train you to fill in those gaps.

The Christmas Party at the Marquee on Sunday December 22^nd, beginning at 7.30pm—details of which can be found here on the Amovate website—will also represent the launch of our Defibrillator Fund to raise the money for that second machine to be presented to the Bombeiros, and a training machine.

A Tombola will be held during the evening to kick start the fund-raising and we would also ask our members and friends if they could donate prizes for the Tombola, to help make it a real success.

For example, Paulo at O Paulo Restaurant in Arrifana has become an enthusiastic supporter of the scheme and has kindly donated a meal for two at the restaurant as one of the prizes.

So, if you feel you can donate something worthwhile as an attractive prize please let us know. You can hand your donation to any Committee Member, whose names you will find by clicking on “Committee 2013-14” in the top strapline on the website’s home page.

You can also donate by e-mailing us at the address below and we will arrange a time and place to either collect your gift or have it dropped off to us at Amovate. Our e-mail address is:

info@amovate.com

Your support in the past has enabled us to help so many people and is already saving lives around the Aljezur area. We hope and pray we can continue to count on you in this latest very worthy cause which is not simply an Amovate project but one which, with your help, will become a Community Project.

THE AMOVATE COMMITTEE

FOR YOUR INFORMATION:

Defibrillation is the definitive treatment for the life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias, ventricular fibrillation and pulseless ventricular tachycardia. Defibrillation consists of delivering a therapeutic dose of electrical energy to the affected heart with a device called a defibrillator. This depolarizes a critical mass of the heart muscle, terminates the arrhythmia, and allows normal sinus rhythm to be reestablished by the body’s natural pacemaker, in the sinoatrial node of the heart.

A major breakthrough was the introduction of portable defibrillators used out of the hospital. This was pioneered in the early 1960s by Prof. Frank Pantridge in Belfast.

Today portable defibrillators are among the many very important tools carried by ambulances.

They are the only proven way to resuscitate a person who has had a cardiac arrest unwitnessed by EMS who is still in persistent ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia at the arrival of pre-hospital providers.

Gradual improvements in the design of defibrillators, partly based on the work developing implanted versions, have led to the availability of Automated External Defibrillators.

These devices can analyse the heart rhythm by themselves, diagnose the shockable rhythms, and charge to treat. This means that no clinical skill is required in their use, allowing lay people to respond to emergencies effectively.