The Sussex Home Defib Co

06/04/2026

A great example of the life saving difference an AED can make .This guy was lucky ,London stations are well served by AED's ,but as the article points out ,that's not the case nationwide and some neighborhoods have NO public access to AED's .
Just 1 in 10 survive an out of hospital cardiac arrest
And 80% occur in the home !
Home purchased defibs or street crowd funded public access have to be the way forward

BBC News - Commuter thanks stranger who restarted his heart

Spencer Stevenson says he owes his life to Hollie Page, who gave him CPR at a London railway station.

23/03/2026

Did you know !
AED stands for " Automated external defibrillator"
The automation element refers to the fact that the AED uses advanced technology to make a shock or no shock decision , manages the shock delivery and talks you through every step of the process.

The only thing you need to remember is
" Press the on button and do what it says"

It's that easy

17/03/2026

It's vitally important to get an AED onto a SCA victim within 3 minutes, the so called "golden window " to provide a good chance of resuscitation. Don't forget for every minute that passes ,chances of survival drop by 10%

But that's 3 minutes to get to an AED ,access that AED, get back to the victim ,deploy and start the device
So in reality your time to an AED needs to be 90 seconds or less .At a fast walking pace that's circa 160 meters distance .it's not far !

Where is your nearest public access defibrillator?

You can check by using
www.defibfinder.uk

A home retained AED means access potentially within seconds not minutes, dramatically increasing the chance of survival

Defib finder uses data from The Circuit, the national defibrillator network, to help you find information about the nearest defibrillators to you.

13/03/2026

Let’s get real!
• Just over 9000 people suffered an out of hospital cardiac arrest last year in West Sussex (SECAmb)
• The survival rate was just over 11%, the highest for any ambulance service in the UK—well done to SECAmb, however that’s still over 8,000 fatalities.
• There are 24 SCA incidents daily in our county, making it one of the most critical medical emergencies
• With zero intervention chances of survival are zero, with the application of good quality CPR chances of survival are 5%.
• Applying a shock from a defibrillator (AED) within the first 3 minutes of a collapse (the “Golden Window”) increases the chance of survival to nearer 75%. Access to an AED within 60 seconds boosts that percentage to the low 90’s.

• For every minute that passes without access to AED chances of survival drop by 10%
• The average ambulance response time for a tier 1 call out in West Sussex is 9 minutes but can, in rural areas, stretch to 15-20 minutes.

The fact is, that an SCA is a survivable incident, it is a preventable death. We will never reach 100% survival rates, some incidents will just be too severe to provide a shockable rhythm, but if you or a family member is the patient would you rather be looking at 5% chance of survival or 75%?

Fast access to an AED saves lives, its as simple as that. If you rely on the arrival of the para medic at 9-10 minutes from collapse the chances of resuscitation are slim.

But here is the problem.

Did you know that 80% of out of hospital SCA’s happen in the home setting, where most people don’t have access to an AED. Access to public access defibrillators (PAD) has improved a lot over the last 10 years but we are still massively short of the numbers to effectively cover our communities. Ask yourself this, do you know where you nearest PAD is? and if so, is it within 90 seconds of your location?
That’s why I’ve set up Sussex Home Defib Co, as a West Sussex resident of near 50 years who lost a father to an SCA in the home, I’m passionate about reducing fatalities from SCA in West Sussex by ensuring that those at a higher risk of SCA have an AED to hand or that communities at street level crowd fund to provide a neighbourhood AED resource available to all 24/7