YES product inspired by students experience
Sullivan-Roberts is a year 13 student at Christchurch’s St Thomas of Canterbury College, and the experience has inspired a business studies project – a CPR resuscitation mask with a QR code that shows the location of the nearest public defibrillator. The idea has been entered into the Young Enterprise Scheme awards.
As a teenager in the North East of England in the 1970s, George Walls played football at “a decent level”.
So when a friend asked him to join a Canterbury over-60s side that was short on players he didn’t hesitate.
He hadn’t played a competitive match in 20 years, but after careers in the Royal Marines and New Zealand prison service he was fit and active and was in training for the Coast to Coast race.
The game was being played at Foster Park, in Rolleston, on March 27. Walls changed, laced up his new football boots and headed onto the pitch.
About 20 minutes into the first half he “hit the deck”, having suffered a life-threatening cardiac arrest.
Luckily, 17-year-old Callum Sullivan-Roberts worked at the nearby Selwyn Sports Centre as a recreation co-ordinator. It was only his second week on the job.
Sullivan-Roberts has been a Christchurch surf lifesaver since he was 11, so when a man came running in screaming “we need CPR”, he knew what to do.
“I grabbed our AED (automated external defibrillator) and took off outside,” he said.
He sprinted 200m to where Walls lay, surrounded by other players. He was not breathing and had no pulse.
Sullivan-Roberts ushered the crowd away and called for reinforcements from the sports centre before activating the defibrillator to try to resuscitate him.