On the 17th June 2021, a good friend of mine, Danny Shurmer, sadly passed away after suffering a cardiac arrest at his home, aged just 43. Although the emergency services were quickly on the scene, they sadly could not save Danny.

Cardiac arrests can affect anyone at any time. 30,000 occur outside of hospitals across the UK each year. Currently less than 10% of these people experiencing cardiac arrests in the community survive.

Danny’s mam and dad have created the DS43 community defibrillators charity. They realised how there was a huge shortage of public access defibrillators across Hartlepool. Unfortunately there wasn’t one in close by in the area that could be deployed for Danny, that day, but hopefully raising funds to provide public access defibrillators will help others who suffer cardiac arrest in the future.

DS43’s objective is to ensure that every home in Hartlepool is within 500m of a public access defibrillator that is available 24/7, 365 days a year. They cost £1,100 each. In order to meet the target, 33 defibs are required. Currently 20 have been purchased and installed.

However, there are also some ongoing costs and DS43 are committed to ensuring that there are funds put aside to cover these costs for the next 10 years.

These costs are replacement pads (£50) for every time they are used or after 5 years and batteries (£300) every 4 years - the total estimate is £20,700 on top of the remaining defibs that are required. So not only are funds required for the remaining defibs, funds are needed to cover the longer term costs.

I will therefore be running the Great North Run on Sunday 11th September 2022 in aid of DS43 Community Defibrillators. This will be the first time I have taken on any such challenge.

This is a charity that is very close to my heart and any donation large or small would be very much appreciated. Please also add gift aid to your donation!

Thank You 💙