TORONTO, Ont. – Don Cherry has appealed to Queen’s Park for more life-saving defibrillators in hockey arenas to save heart attack victims.
The hockey icon joined Heart and Stroke Foundation officials at the Hockey Hall of Fame, Tuesday, to unveil the new automated external defibrillator (AED).
That particular machine has been dedicated to Chase McEachern, a Barrie teen who lobbied Queen’s Park for more defibrillators, before heart problems took his life in June 2006.
In the precious moments before an ambulance arrives, a defibrillator can be a crucial tool in saving a life — heart attack patients can have a 75 per cent chance of surviving.
The Heart and Stroke Foundation said patients have a better chance of surviving a heart attack if they are treated within the first few minutes.
Cherry wants resuscitation machines in every hockey arena in Canada, saying he’s seen too many players die on the bench.
“Hockey is a little different than anything else because the guys usually think that they can really do the same things they did when they were 25 and 30,” he said.
Cherry noted that hockey is a rough sport to be in when you’re older and your heart begins to give way.
“They make it to the bench and they say to their buddies, ‘I don’t feel well,’ and that’s when it happens. They go right to the last minute, and as hockey players they won’t show pain, and that’s what happens. They try to camouflage it as much as they can,” Cherry said.
The Heart and Stroke Foundation wants Queen’s Park to pass a bill that would see defibrillators in more public spaces, saying these machines have already saved the lives of 27 people.
A Newmarket, Ont., man credited emergency crews and a public defibrillator for saving his life. Mark Sadgrove told 680News the device was used on his after he collapsed while playing hockey last year.
“So the after-effects also took away the fear of death because it’s given me a new and appreciative outlook on life. And the doctors [said], ‘sounds like you’ve had a near death experience,’ and sure enough, when I got all the records back, there it was, no vitals for two-and-a-half minutes,” he said.
The 52-year-old father was told he had suffered a stage three heart attack.
