ST Oliver Plunkett parish priest Fr Aidan Brankin, alongside staff and parishioners, have completed a three-hour training session on how to use their new defibrillator which was purchased following a fundraising venture in the parish.
The training was delivered by Lisburn man Jock McGowan who has 36 years experience with the Red Cross.
Speaking after the training, Parish Secretary Cathy Megahey said: “We had an incident a few months ago during a funeral in the Church when a parishioner had taken ill.
"Thankfully they were fine and the quick dart to the Donegal Celtic club for a loan of their defibrillator was unnecessary.
"However, we got to thinking that we should have our own defibrillator. We did an appeal via our weekly parish bulletin, and we were delighted and amazed at the generosity and speed at which donations came in.”
Cathy praised the generosity of the parishioners and thanked those who donated.
“St Oliver Plunkett parish are so generous, no matter what we need from them for the church, they are there. We would like to sincerely thank all those who donated and those who stepped forward to be trained," she said.
On the training day 22 local people were shown how to use the machine. Those who donated were offered training first and other parishioners were selected and offered training because they attend church on a regular basis, either at the weekend or weekday Masses.
This way there should be a good cross section of available of fully trained parishioners who would be present should they ever be needed.
