EMERGENCY services have teamed up with campaigner Lizzie Jones on a new project to install lifesaving defibrillators in key locations across the county, including in Bradford. 

Funded by West Yorkshire Police, a number Community Public Access Defibrillators (CPADs) have been installed outside police buildings across the Force area, housed in secure cabinets that can be accessed by both staff and members of the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In Bradford, they have been installed at Trafalgar House police station, Nelson Street, Lawcroft House, Manningham, and in Eccleshill

West Yorkshire Police and the Yorkshire Ambulance Service hosted a session this morning for staff and local businesses to show them how to use the devices and give lifesaving treatment in an emergency. 

It's an important cause for Lizzie, 33, the wife of late Keighley Cougars and Wales half-back Danny Jones, who set up the Danny Jones Defibrillator Fund in her husband’s name following his sudden death in May 2015 while playing against London Skolars.

Danny, 29, collapsed and suffered a cardiac arrest while playing rugby, leaving behind his wife and five-month-old twins.

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Since then, Lizzie has campaigned tirelessly to raise awareness and spoke at today's event to highlight how important defibrillators are. 

She said: "With the charity now, we have sent out over 120 defibrillators.

"The charity has now opened up to everybody,so it started off with rugby league clubs and now we’ve managed to open it up so we’re getting a lot of schools, communities, a lot of other sports, we’ve gone to cricket, rugby union, football, so it’s really spreading and the important message of why they are so important is spreading is as well, which is the main thing."

She added: “Since losing Danny, the massive realisation for me was that there is nothing I can do about what’s happened, but what I can do, in terms of changing the future hopefully, is huge.

"Getting involved with the Yorkshire Ambulance Service and the Restart a Heart campaign, going into schools, teaching our children the importance of first aid is huge.

“I think people are so unaware, I was before Danny died. I didn’t really know what a defibrillator was. I remember watching Casualty and seeing the ‘stand back everyone’ and that was my awareness.

“For me, through the charity, with the Yorkshire Ambulance Service, teaching people how to use the defibrillators and refreshing their first aid is huge and it should be the norm that everybody knows what to do."

The charity now helps to pay for screening days. On the first screening day, one gentleman was sent straight to A&E. 

Police officer Colin McNulty knows all too well the importance of defibrillators. 

He was taking a Force fitness test last year when he suffered a cardiac arrest.

He said: "My heart stopped, CPR was administered, from what I’ve been told, that didn’t work.

“Only for the fact that a defib was available, that’s what saved my life.

“Today, it’s massive to me, I’ve been through it and experienced it.”

Dave Jones, Community Defibrillator Officer with the Yorkshire Ambulance Service, added: “The more defibrillators we have got out in the public domain, the more people will survive.

“If we can get a defib on somebody in the first two or three minutes of a cardiac arrest, there’s about an 85 per cent chance of reversing what is happening.

“Through time delays, they will lose somewhere between seven and ten per cent of a chance per minute.

“So it’s vitally important to identify this equipment is available and then get it there and on the patient, let it do what it needs to do as quickly as possible."