By Olivia McDonald

A Life-Saving Donation

Dec 14, 2018 | 2:02 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – ‘Tis the season for giving. Local seniors received a life-saving donation Friday morning from Prince George-Valemount MLA Shirley Bond and her Big Bike team. 

Automatic External Defibrilators – or AED’s – save the lives of roughly 140 British Columbians annually. MLA Shirley Bond and her team won the right to donate one by raising more than 11 thousand dollars during last years Big Bike fundraiser. She says choosing the North Central Seniors Association as the recipient was an easy decision.

“This is a group that meets every week and does activities together and not perhaps as well known as some other seniors organizations and ironically on their wishlist was an AED. So I talked to our team, to our team captains and we decided that we wanted to be hopeful about having the opportunity to give them an AED and today we were able to deliver that.”

The NCSA gathers three nights a week to play pool, paint and enjoy other fun activities. So far six members of the association have been trained to use an AED, though the hope is they’ll never have to use it. 

“It means that we feel more secure in our building because we are old right. So to know that if somebody has a cardiac event, then we’re trained to deal with it,” says President of NCSA, Hennie Cook. 

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Bond has been involved with the Heart & Stroke Foundation for many years and her reason behind it is quite personal.

“Almost six years ago at Christmas, we spent Christmas at St. Paul’s Hospital supported by incredible people, doctors, nurses and volunteers who made it feel a little bit more like Christmas. My husband reminds me that it’s the best gift he’s been given, a new heart and a second chance at a great life.”

Bond would like to see more AED’s in use throughout BC and is contemplating tabling a Private Members Bill to make that happen.