Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance (DSAA) are working alongside South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) and Resuscitation Council UK (RCUK), to help Save Lives Together at this year’s Glastonbury Festival.

The collaboration hopes to improve the confidence of festival goers to act in an emergency, by learning how to perform CPR and use a defibrillator to help save someone’s life, should they suffer a cardiac arrest while at the festival or at home.

An out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is the ultimate medical emergency and can happen to anyone, at any time. In the UK, around 200 people per day suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest; currently, only 1 in 10 survive. Every minute without CPR and defibrillation reduces a person’s chances of survival by around 10% and the risk of permanent brain damage increases.

The collaboration between DSAA, SWASFT and RCUK will see the three organisations support the festival in the following ways:

• DSAA will, for the first time, have a presence at the festival in the Green Futures Field to engage with festival goers and to demonstrate how to deliver life-saving CPR and use a defibrillator. As the festival’s local air ambulance service, DSAA could also be called to attend cases of critical illness or injury at any time during the festival if air transfer to hospital is required.
• Specialist Paramedics in Critical Care employed by South Western Ambulance Service, will be supporting staff and volunteers from DSAA to share their expertise and experience. This will enable festival goers attending Glastonbury to walk away with life-saving knowledge and the confidence to act in an emergency.
• RCUK are encouraging people to learn CPR before going to the festival by undertaking their free award-winning online Lifesaver course, which takes just ten minutes to complete. The training will see members of the public learn essential life-saving skills via an interactive video game, which leads them through several scenarios, requiring them to make crucial decisions and learn the essentials to save a life.

Ollie Zorab, Specialist Practitioner in Critical Care at DSAA and Clinical Lead for Cardiac Arrest at SWASFT said: “Glastonbury Festival is a unique opportunity to try something new, this could be a new genre of music or life-saving skills such as how to perform CPR. Saving Lives Together at Glastonbury is an exciting collaboration which could save lives by giving everyone at the festival the opportunity to learn essential life support skills. RCUK’s award-winning online training can then be used to improve your confidence to save the life of a friend or family member at home.”

James Cant, CEO at RCUK said: ” When somebody goes into cardiac arrest they are clinically dead, and bystanders need to act quickly and confidently to give them the best chance of survival. This is why it’s crucial that as many people as possible learn the very basics of CPR and take the lifesaver training – your two hands could help save a life.”

RCUK’s free and award-winning Lifesaver course can be accessed online by visiting: https://www.lifesaver.org.uk/