This article was originally written by Imogen Howse for SWNS — the U.K.’s largest independent news agency, providing globally relevant original, verified, and engaging content to the world’s leading media outlets.
A campaigner who climbed Mount Everest to install a defibrillator has revealed the device saved a woman’s life — just three weeks later.
David Sullivan founded Code Blue CPR, an organization that teaches people lifesaving CPR and installs defibrillators across England, after he lost four close friends, all under the age of 45, to cardiac arrest.
Sullivan, 62, has spent the last several years traveling around the world trying to improve cardiac survival rates. Earlier this year, he ventured to the Himalayas, where he installed what he says is the world’s highest defibrillator. The dad of four from Oxted, England, first climbed to an altitude of 22,000 feet to test the defibrillator — and then descended to one of the villages near Everest Base Camp, at just over 16,500 feet, to install the device for use.
He returned from Everest on April 30, and three weeks later learned that the defibrillator had saved a climber’s life when her heart stopped. Per the BBC, a nearby man from the Netherlands had seen the device and, with the help of an Austrian trekker, used it on the French woman.
“It was the proudest moment of my life when I learned what had happened,” Sullivan told SWNS. “It was last Friday [May 23], at around 3:45 a.m. I have kids traveling the world so I initially thought, ‘Oh my God, something’s happened.’ But it was a Sherpa [an Everest guide] who told me the defibrillator had been activated and had saved a 30-year-old French woman’s life.”
He continued: “It is incredible that something so simple can save someone’s life — and I hope it will help people realize how important it is to have access to defibrillators. Being within three minutes of a defibrillator increases your chance of survival from 8% to more than 50%.”
While in Nepal, Sullivan also taught multiple CPR and defibrillator classes to Sherpas and locals, who had had no previous access to the training. And now that he’s back in the U.K., he’s preparing to present a program to the government that would see 1.2 million children across London trained in CPR.
“We want every school to have a new defibrillator and every person in the school — students, teachers, staff — to have all the training necessary to save someone’s life,” he said. “We won’t stop until we achieve that.”
Sullivan knows firsthand how valuable CPR training can be, as he saved a young golfer’s life just three months after he completed a course.
“I performed nine minutes of CPR for a young lad and used a defibrillator just three months after I had been shown how to,” he said. “While I was doing this, around 30 people just watched and didn’t help — because they didn’t know how. When the lad’s mum called me the next day to say he was alive, it changed my life forever. I knew then that everyone should know how to save a life.”
To find a CPR class near you or online, head to the American Red Cross website.
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