Riverside Park in Chester-le-Street has been disappointing everyone for ages due to its total lack of a defibrillator, or Mr Zappy Zap, as I’m calling him. But no more!
The park now boasts a shiney, life-saving, zap-zapping, definitely brilliant defibrillator located on the exterior wall of the café.
To cough up the £2,100 for Mr Zappy Zap, Durham County Councillors Beaty Bainbridge, Alison Batey, Linda Marshall, Craig Martin, Tracie Smith and Danny Wood generously contributed your money from their respective neighbourhood budgets, with cash from the Council’s culture and sport team as well.
Friends of Riverside Park, in cahoots with Chester-le-Street and District Area Action Partnership (AAP), will assist with maintaining Mr Zappy Zap, and carry out regular health checks to ensure he is always in prime zapping condition.
Allyson Rose mused: “The installation of this defibrillator is going to be a huge benefit to the many users of this park.
“We really need it because the footfall here is so high. Every week hundreds of runners use the park and in the summer months the splash pad and play areas are very busy, so the public really wanted this. Hopefully we won’t ever need to use it but it’s nice to know it’s there.”
