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The HeartStart Foundation ABN 30 284 021 508
Donations (tax deductible) can be made to: Rotary Club of Williamstown, PO Box 111, Williamstown 3016, Victoria, Australia
The HeartStart Foundation
A project of the Rotary Club of Williamstown
Claude Bury (far right) with former Premier Steve Bracks and former Education Minister Lynne Kosky.
Steve Bracks launched a pilot program on 6th June 2006 to place heart
defibrillators into schools.
Lynne Kosky presented a defibrillator - designed to restart a patient's heart if it
loses rhythm and stops pumping because of an electrical malfunction in the
heart - to Seaholme Primary school.
Claude Bury has "died" seven times - and that has motivated him to become the
driving force behind a project that aims to save children from a silent killer.
Mr Bury - a Past President of the Rotary Club of Williamstown - set up the
Heartstart program, which provides defibrillators to children judged to be in
danger of heart seizures, in late 2004.
He said his drive to help vulnerable children was partly inspired by his own
health problems which included an instance of cardiac arrest, when his heart
stopped pumping blood for eight minutes.
He also suffered three heart attacks and has survived two quadruple heart
bypass operations. After his cardiac arrest, Mr Bury was fitted with a
Pacemaker/Defibrillator which has started his heart after it stopped beating six
or seven times.
In the HeartStart pilot program, Rotary clubs and the State Government shared the cost of placing defibrillators in five Hobsons Bay schools - Seaholme,
Altona, Williamstown, Williamstown North and St Mary's Catholic School, Williamstown. Each machine plus training of staff costs $4,600.00