Defib Your Club, For Life has secured a great deal over three years to enable your club to pay a small monthly amount as an alternative to buying the AED upfront.
An exclusive comprehensive package costs $2,300 and can now be paid in monthly installments of only $85 over three years. This price includes training with no extra costs for seven years.
Defib Your Club, For Life is also giving clubs the chance to raise funds for the program through their local Officeworks Store. To get more information on this go to 
www.defibforlife.org.au or visit your local Officeworks store to register your club.
Please contact Sue Buckman on 1300 880 309, alternatively you can email 
info@defibforlife.org.au with any queries to ensure your clubs needs are met.
WHO ARE DEFIB YOUR CLUB, FOR LIFE?
Defib Your Club, For Life (DYCFL) are providing a nation-wide campaign to raise awareness of Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA). Defib Your Club, For Life is a self-funded charitable organisation strongly committed to the implementation of public access defibrillators.
Our initiative is simple, we want to educate communities on the subject of Sudden Cardiac Arrest and demonstrate how anyone can easily and safely use an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) in an effort to save a life.
The initiative was established following the death of several young athletes and officials at sporting venues in Victoria, in particular Stephen Buckman, a 19-year-old player who died at football training in May 2010. Off duty MICA Paramedic, Andrew White (Founder of DYCFL), was in attendance when Stephen collapsed. Andrew and a team of club supporters fought hard to save Stephen’s life, unfortunately without success.
With 21 years of Paramedic experience to draw upon, it is Andrew’s belief that Stephen may have survived had a Defibrillator been at hand. Detrimental to the outcome, Stephen wasn’t defibrillated until after the first ambulance arrived some 22 minutes after he collapsed.
Defib Your Club, For Life aims to assist sporting clubs by providing them with a solution to this kind of risk. By owning an AED and participating in an education program we hope to equip clubs with the vital tools to react if their own emergency occurs. We hope to allow clubs to be less reliant on emergency services response times and more confident in implementing an action plan that will help to save lives.
WHAT IS SUDDEN CARDIAC ARREST? AND WHY ARE AUTOMATIC DEFIBRILLATORS VITAL EQUIPMENT?
Sudden cardiac arrest does not discriminate; it can affect all people from all walks of life.
Sudden cardiac arrest occurs when the heart’s normal electrical impulses suddenly change, causing the heart to malfunction and limiting its ability to pump blood efficiently to vital organs. The most common cause of interruption to the heart’s normal electrical impulses is Ventricular Fibrillation (VF). This event is usually the result of cardiovascular disease, genetic disorders or trauma.
With the heart muscle fibrillating or quivering, a person will soon become unconscious and their heart will stop within seconds. If the fibrillating heart impulses are not terminated quickly by defibrillation the person will die.
It is estimated that 1 in every 1000 people has an undiagnosed heart condition. A cardiac arrest can occur without prior warning signs or symptoms; these can be otherwise active and fit people.
There are an estimated 30,000 out-of-hospital events of sudden cardiac arrest each year in Australia.
Critically, survival from a cardiac arrest relies upon a timely response from bystanders and/or emergency services. For every minute that passes there is a 10% less chance of survival. The most successful outcomes are seen when defibrillation occurs within five minutes.
WHAT YOU CAN DO AS A CLUB?
We are introducing a structured program around a quality device supplied by a leading manufacturer of cardiac equipment. We have designed a seven-year defibrillator program with community organisations and clubs in mind. The program takes learnings from overseas defibrillator programs and incorporates many essential elements such as emergency services registration, training and a maintenance and support service (See full package below).
HOW YOUR CLUB CAN GET INVOLVED
Register via website – www.defibforlife.org.au or call 1300 880 309.
CASE STORY – ABERFELDIE SPORTING CLUB
CLICK HERE to read a press release from Aberfeldie Sporting Club which shows the importance of having a reliable AED.
