Supporting Lambton County's public-access defibrillator program in Ontario
A near-fatal situation involving the child of an Enbridge employee, and a conversation in the back of an ambulance, have resulted in a donation that will save lives in Sarnia, Ont.
Lambton Emergency Medical Services funded the purchase of public-access Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) out of a $5,000 Safe Community grant from Enbridge – after a recent encounter with Cynthia Lockrey, a senior community relations advisor with Enbridge’s Green Energy division, and her son Reid.
Paramedics were called to Lockrey’s home last June when Reid, then two, started convulsing from a high fever.
“I was lying in bed next to him and he started convulsing,” recalls Lockrey. “He literally turned blue and stopped breathing. There was no pulse, nothing.”
Lockrey screamed for her husband to call 911 and soon police, fire and ambulance were there to help. “It seemed like hours but it was just a few minutes,” says the mother of two. “We had the full cavalry at our house that night.”
Reid’s situation remained precarious, and he continued to have seizures in his mother’s arms as she climbed into the back of the ambulance. Lockrey spoke to the paramedic to calm herself as he worked to stabilize her child. She remembered a meeting she’d had just two days prior with Ian MacRobbie, general manager for Enbridge’s Green Energy, Power Transmission, and Emerging Technologies in Ontario and Quebec. The pair had discussed where they should allocate the region’s next Safe Community program grant, awarded to first-response emergency services in communities across North America where Enbridge operates.
“I knew Dan (the paramedic) from previous calls . . . and I asked him if they ever needed money for fundraising,” says Lockrey, whose son is now doing much better. “He told me they were currently fundraising for defibrillators.”
As it turned out, Lambton County paramedics had just completed the Becel Heart&Stroke Ride for Heart in Toronto. Enbridge’s donation helped push the group's fundraising total to $15,000 — enough for 11 AEDs that are now spread throughout the county and ready for action.
“We are so fortunate to be able to buy these and get them out to people in places where they’re really needed,” says Jon Cann, supervisor of emergency medical services for the County of Lambton.
AEDs work to deliver a life-saving shock within minutes of a patient suffering cardiac arrest – and can be used by anyone, because once the device is turned on, it provides step-by-step instructions. To date, over 70 public-access AEDs have been placed in the Sarnia community through the program.
“The addition of these public-access AEDs will certainly strengthen the cardiac safety of our community,” says Cann.
Enbridge’s Safe Community program has existed in the U.S. since 2002, and in Canada since 2009, and has invested about $7-million in North American emergency responder organizations since its inception.
