26 years ago my father had a heart attack. We lived on a farm 50kms from Ballarat and by the time the Mica ambulance arrived it was too late. He was just 48 years old when he died. He left behind my mum, who he loved dearly, myself and my 6 siblings (Kimba, the youngest at 9 years of age).
This had really big impact on my life and it was these circumstances that ultimately led me to a career in health and fitness. My dad was overweight and in my view, if I could take people under my wing and support them to be the healthiest version of themselves then maybe, just maybe, I could prevent this happening to someone else and save their family the trauma we endured.
And so it began, my vision was to change the world and to help people see that being healthy could, in fact, save their life.
A family history of heart disease also inspired Paul to follow a career path in health and fitness with his father having heart bypass surgery in his early 50’s
It seems that we were both destined to help others. We’ve been sharing our passion for seven years now and in that time we have educated and guided families to the healthy way of life, and we continue to do so.
Being healthy reduces the risk of all sorts of diseases, especially cardiovascular disease. BUT. It does not make us invincible! There is no guarantee that makes us completely immune to any of theses health problems.
Each year as part of our first aid training Paul and I do a CPR update. It’s part of our duty of care as personal trainers, so that we can keep everyone safe and look after them in case of an emergency.
In these training sessions the paramedics are very clear about the importance of a Defibrillator (AED) when someone is in cardiac arrest. The chance of a full recovery is 70% when one is used as opposed to 28% when CPR alone is used. And each year we have thought about purchasing a defibrillator, but they’re expensive and we put it off.
Having been close to a few people lately in the healthy weight range that have suffered serious health problems. Paul and I decided that rather than take our family on a winter holiday, we would invest in a defibrillator.
You see, defibrillators save lives.
We will have it with us at all fitness sessions and in our car on weekends. We hope that it’s the most expensive piece of equipment we own that we will never use. But it gives us peace of mind that if something serious happens (whether at work or out in the public), we are well equipped to deal with it.
I often wonder what would have happened if there was a defibrillator in our town or if we lived we closer to emergency care, would dad still be here spending time with his grandchildren, none of whom he ever met?