By Shamsiya Hussainpoor
The annual ‘Shocktober’ campaign took place in Monbulk on Tuesday 8 October, where Ambulance Victoria paramedics engaged with members of the community to teach them how to save a life in the event of a cardiac arrest.
Shocktober is a month-long cardiac arrest awareness campaign to highlight the importance of learning CPR and how to use an automated external defibrillator (AED).
Monbulk was selected for this campaign because it is more isolated – located on the backside of the mountain, which can lead to longer ambulance response times during emergency callout.
Monbulk is currently the only recognised heart-safe community in the Hills region, while there is also a heart-safe community in Healesville, that program was completed over two years ago.
Ambulance Victoria paramedic and Monbulk heart safe community lead Jessica Drummond said this event signified the culmination of extensive hard work for the community of Monbulk.
“Monbulk has been part of the heart-safe community initiative since the beginning of this year,” she said.
Heart-safe communities are identified based on data from Ambulance Victoria and the Heart-Safe Foundation focuses on areas that would benefit from enhanced training in recognising cardiac arrest, performing CPR, and understanding when and how to use an AED.
“We’ve been active in Monbulk for the past nine to ten months, providing education to the community, in that time, we’ve reached over 500 people through our sessions, we’ve also increased the number of publicly accessible AEDs from one to three, all available 24-hours a day – with plans for further expansion soon,” Ms Drummond said.
“Our community engagement has focused on teaching the importance of recognising cardiac arrest, performing CPR, and using AEDs in a low-stress training environment, rather than having to use them in a stressful environment and potentially saving someone’s life.”
“We’ve also increased the amount of people in town that signed up to the ‘GoodSam’ first responder app – if someone does have a cardiac arrest, people who are signed up to the GoodSam app can arrive at the location after getting a notification on their phone and assist by doing CPR and potentially save a life even before the ambulance gets there.”
Ms Drummond said this event served as a celebration of their achievements.
“We’ve met all of our targets in the record time – normally this is an 18 month project, and because of the amazing commitment that Monbulk has shown, we’ve managed to knock off the target in just about seven-months – it’s been completely unprecedented how fast we’ve managed to reach those targets and we’re in town today to say thank you to the community by providing the free sausage sizzle and also making sure we’re still sending out the Shocktober messaging across,” she said.
Ms Drummond has been a paramedic with Ambulance Victoria for the past 15 years, she has never had a bad experience with the Monbulk community.
“Everyone’s always been very happy and friendly, and willing to have a chat to us and most are even willing to give CPR a go, as long as their knees and hips are ok,” Ms Drummond said.
“I’d like to express my gratitude to the community and everyone who has supported us, especially the local volunteers and Bendigo Bank, who have been incredible supporters from the very beginning – without this community backing, we wouldn’t have reached this point as successfully as we have so thank you, all.”
