Kirktown Garden Centre in Stonehaven has installed a defibrillator that will be available to use by anyone in the event of a medical emergency.
The inspiration behind getting the life-saving machine was when the garden centre hosted a fashion show to raise money for Sandpiper, a charity that provides emergency medical equipment.
Assistant manager Linda Gibbon said the event launched the initiative due to it raising awareness about the lack of defibrillators nationwide.
She said: “We raised money for them and then we took the decision with the amount of customers that we have coming through the business we would look to get a machine for ourselves, just so that God forbid anybody took unwell at the garden centre we would have a machine.”
Put outside for the benefit of the community
Instead of putting it into the centre, management thought it was for the best that it was put outside and available to the general public, linking it up to community first responders.
Explaining why management made this decision, she said: “We’re only open 9am to 5.30pm, so it was to give access 24 hours to life-saving machinery because there’s no point of it being in a locked building if someone’s trying to get a machine.”
Staff training this week
About 10 of the centre‘s staff will be trained this week how on how to use the defibrillator.
Mrs Gibbon said the machine “tells you exactly what to do” and that you “don’t need to be trained to use it”, however, she added: “It’s just an added benefit for us to have somebody that’s aware of what they need to do.”
The new defibrillator is Stonehaven‘s seventh in total.
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