A DEFIBRILLATOR has been donated to the British Motor Museum as a thank you in memory of a motoring enthusiast and regular visitor who died following a cardiac arrest.
Heart Health in Business, an organisation that educates businesses on their responsibility for preventing sudden cardiac deaths, presented the potentially life-saving equipment to the Gaydon-based museum.
HHB was set up in November 2022 by Sophie Owen, a graduate currently employed by Jaguar Land Rover. She successfully campaigned to get a defibrillator installed on her university’s campus, and has previously donated defibrillators to the University of Leicester School of Business and Ashorne Hill.
Sophie was just 17 when she discovered a neighbour trying to resuscitate her dad, Chris, who had collapsed outside the family home, in 2019, aged just 54.
Sophie has since become passionate about raising awareness for Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA), defibrillators and CPR, as she does not want anyone else to experience the pain she did just because the right equipment or expertise was not nearby.
As part of the donation, all staff and volunteers at the British Motor Museum are being encouraged to partake in CPR training to instruct them on how to use the defibrillator and possibly help save lives.
Sophie said, “My dad, a keen car enthusiast and Defender 90 owner, loved to visit the British Motor Museum at any opportunity he could – especially to see any JLR products.
“The museum helped fuel my dad’s hobby and provided him with joy and happy memories that I now treasure dearly.
“Starting at JLR I was so excited to spend some of my first days at the museum and to see exactly why my dad loved visiting so much. It was an easy choice to donate a defibrillator and cabinet to the museum as a small way of saying thank you for providing my dad and many other families with an experience and memories to treasure.”
