THE final of five public ‘Prepared To Save A Life’ demonstrations has been given to the residents and businesses of Ilkley.

The Clarke Foley centre hosted the Ilkley’s Got Heart live demo team, lead by Paula Colman from PACO First Aid. Stu Hyde, chairman of directors at the centre, volunteered as the stroke victim allowing Paula to demonstrate the various techniques to identify and help someone who is suspected of having a stroke.

It showed visitors to the centre how to quickly and calmly deal with the situation, evaluate if the victim is indeed having a stroke and administer the appropriate aid. Visitors were encouraged to get involved.

The ‘Ilkley’s Got Heart’ campaign is encouraging people to take a simple, free on-line course to equip them with the basic, but essential skills to save lives. The campaign goal is to make Ilkley a town of live-savers by getting 1000 people in Ilkley Prepared to Save a Life.

Broken into five, 10-minute sections, the course covers Primary Survey of the casualty, CPR, Bleeding, Choking and Stroke. It takes under an hour to complete the course and gain the certificate of completion.

The ‘Ilkley’s Got Heart’ campaign is running until Christmas, everyone completing the course before the end of December will be entered into a prize draw to win a voucher for £100, £50 or £25. Vouchers can be spent with participating Ilkley businesses who have supported and completed the course.

The team is pleased to report the campaign is almost half way to reaching the 1,000 target.

David Shaw MBE, chairman of 4 Ilkley Community Network Group said: “This final demonstration at the Clarke Foley was the culmination of five weeks of work by our dedicated volunteers to bring the courses to life. The realistic live demonstrations have been quite hard hitting at times but the public have been so supportive of the campaign, getting involved at the demos. I appeal to everyone out there to take the course, it’s totally free, there is no ongoing commitment or pressure, you’ve really nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing it. We are almost half way to our target of 1000 people signed up, but we want to exceed that target by Christmas if we can. If you’ve registered but not completed the course you are really missing out and it doesn’t count towards our total, do remember to complete the course if you’ve registered.”

Anyone can take the course by registering online at www.ilkleysgotheart.co.uk. The non-profit campaign is being generously supported and sponsored by local groups and businesses including Virtual College, The Ilkley BID, Westbrook Agency, PACO First Aid, Bradford MDC, Welcome to Yorkshire and Ilkley Town Council.