Club’s heart-starter

By Russell Bennett
EACH person who clamoured to Vincent “Vinny” Bonanno’s aid at the Silvan footy ground on 6 March did all they could to save his life.
They administered CPR, they called an ambulance immediately, they cleared the oval and its entry and exit points, they did everything.
But a sudden cardiac arrest tragically still took the 22-year-old Wandin man’s life.
Nobody at the football club wants to ever go through the pain of losing one of their own again.
And with their new portable defibrillator, hopefully they won’t have to.
Last Tuesday (22 March), representatives from medical services companies Schiller and Staying Alive donated the $3500 machine to the club, following its recent heartbreaking ordeal.
Silvan Football Club president Chris Maclagan described the donation as “critically important for our club”.
“We hope we’d never have to use it, but this will generate so much more awareness of how vital they are,” he said.
“Vinny’s brother said to me just last week: ‘We never thought we’d ever need this’.
“The tragedy we went through really opened our eyes and we just don’t want any other footy clubs to go through it.”
Rob Voss from Staying Alive, and a paramedic, said the idea to donate the machine to the Silvan club was inspired by a similar incident 18 months ago at the Rupertswood Football Club.
“A couple of our friends (and colleagues) attended there for a young man in a similar sort of incident (to Vinny’s) and we ended up providing the machine and doing all the training for them there,” Mr Voss said.
“We started to get this feeling for football clubs. Once something like Vinny’s tragedy happens, not just the club, but the whole community feels it.
“When you use the defib and get someone back, it’s the most unbelievable feeling and it’s just such a shame we couldn’t do that here.”
Kallista clinical support officer and MICA paramedic Gary Robertson was called to the Silvan ground when Vinny collapsed.
“The club was great,” he said.
“They started CPR straight away, they had people out on the street making sure the ambulance had clear access, the oval was cleared. They did everything right.”
But Mr Robertson said the next, missing part in the chain of survival was a defibrillator.
“And basically anybody can use them,” he said.
“In the past, defibrillators were only used by paramedics and hospitals but these are now purpose-designed – for one specific reason – to deliver a defib in the easiest possible way.
“Anybody on the street can pick these things up, follow the prompts, and use them and that’s what we have to make people aware of.”
Mr Robertson couldn’t say for sure if a defibrillator would have made a difference on 6 March, “but there certainly is a lot of people walking around today because of them.”
“The sooner a defibrillator is used on somebody with sudden cardiac arrest, the greater their chance of survival and every minute that ticks by, the chances diminish considerably,” he said.
Staying Alive manager and intensive care paramedic Craig Hazelwood said he hoped the donation was the greatest waste of time and money he’d been involved in.
“We hope it sits on the wall and never, ever gets used but it only needs to be used once to make it worthwhile,” he said.