My brother is a paramedic and he always says that Christmas is their busiest time for heart attack call-outs. There is one piece of research I found, coming from Sweden (and published in the British Medical Journal) that confirms that, in Sweden, Christmas Eve at 10pm is the most common time of the year to suffer a heart attack. Christmas Eve is the key day of the festival and is equivalent to our Christmas Day family festivities.

The researchers think that age (especially over 75); underlying health conditions; extra stress; and extra food and alcohol intake all come together in a perfect storm and a heart that is already working hard just struggles even more.

I don’t mean to be a meany at this time of year – but you may like to take the opportunity now to locate your nearest defibrillator. Mine is on Sileby Road. 

A defibrillator is located outside the Parish Council office. If you dial 999, the ambulance service will direct you to one of the available defibs closest to you and give you the access code to it.

When I visited the British Gypsum Open Day in September, I had the opportunity to experiment with a defibrillator with Phil Johnson, British Gypsum employee and one of their brilliant first-aiders. I was surprised at how easy it is to use. You get both easy-to-understand pictures but really helpful is the additional recorded voice that talks you through it too. That voice, I think, would be reassuring in a real-life emergency.


Karisa Krcma