St John Ambulance Victoria has announced that they will be launching a programme in which they will be providing defibrillators to all the sporting clubs at Ballarat. The Heart Start program will provide the equipments to more than
2,300 sport clubs by 2014.

The decision being taken is not an abrupt move and has been taken after a teenager lost his life at the sports ground while playing football. Nathan Prince, 17, was playing football in club when football hit his chest. He suffered cardiac arrest and delay in the arrival of paramedics took away his life.

Nathan’s father Bernie Prince told that if there would have been defibrillator at the club then his son would have been alive. He was the one who said that defibrillators should be provided to every sports club in the state.

Prince said that he heard about St John Ambulance programme and is quite happy. He hopes that the incident, which happened with their family, will not be repeated. St John chief executive officer Stephen Horton said that they understand the importance of defibrillators at such place. This is the reason that they have decided to initiate the programme.

“Helping prevent avoidable deaths is highly relevant to our mission of saving lives through first aid at St John, and we know that clubs struggle to raise the funds to purchase a defibrillator”, said Horton.

It is also said that they will also be educating people about how to operate the equipment. So people are able to help other at the time of need. Prince is happy to hear the news, but has told that he can never forget that his son could have been saved. He never expected that he will suffer cardiac arrest.