Minutes Matter was set up by Claire Axon, who lost her late husband Neil on Christmas morning in 2012, he was aged just 39.

Neil suffered a heart attack which subsequently developed into Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA). SCA occurs when a person’s heart goes into a life-threatening rhythm known as ventricular fibrillation (VF) and stops pumping blood around the body and to the brain, causing instant unconsciousness. The electrical activity of the heart becomes so chaotic that the heart stops pumping and quivers or ‘fibrillates’ instead.

SCA strikes at any time without warning and sadly, no one is immune regardless of gender, age, fitness level, ethnicity or geography. Sadly, 90-95% of people who suffer from SCA will die.

Claire wanted to start fundraising to educate others on the importance of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and the use of defibrillators as a way to turn a tragic situation into something positive and ‘Minutes Matter’ was created. In an SCA situation minutes do matter, delivering vital treatment of CPR and the use of a defibrillator within 3-5 minutes increases survival chances from 6% to 74%.

11 years later, Claire continues to work incredibly hard to fundraise and has so far placed 8 defibrillators in and around her local community in Bolton by hosting fundraising events such as family fun days at local hotels and pubs working alongside Bolton Wanderers Community Trust.

Claire has made clear she doesn’t want the defibrillator count to just stop there. She will continue to fundraise and create as many new heart safe areas as possible as there are “Never ‘enough’ defibrillators out there.”

Claire has made sure each defibrillator she has responsibility of has been registered on The Circuit (National Defibrillator Network linked to 999 Emergency Services). This allows the defibrillator to be known to the local community and emergency services as she “doesn’t want other families to go through the same heartache.”

Keeping defibrillators in working order is essential. Claire makes sure each time she comes across a defibrillator in public, she will check with the owner if the pads and batteries are in date and the defibrillator is in working order. There have been multiple occasions when Claire has carried out these checks and important defibrillator consumables have been months and even years out of date, meaning the defibrillator is not ready to use in the event of an SCA emergency.

Knowing when to replace your defibrillators pads and batteries is crucial to avoid finding yourself in a situation where your defibrillator is unable to provide life-saving treatment in an emergency.

We are incredibly proud of Claire and her constant hard work educating and fundraising in the importance of the usage and accessibility of defibrillators. She has such a heartbreaking but inspiring story to tell and to turn such a sad story into a positive one to help other people with Minutes Matter is an incredible, heartwarming thing to do.

Neil is still missed dearly by Claire and her family to this day. Claire added “we needed to make sure that something good can come from something really horrific. Sadly not everyone can be saved but as long you are giving the person a fighting chance then that is the most important thing.”

We will continue to support Claire and Minutes Matter with all their defibrillator supplies and knowledge needs.

To follow Claire's story at Minutes Matter and to donate  - click here

Got a story for us? contact one of the team today on 0161 776 7422.