ambulances with $23,000 worth of state of the art machinery which can save the lives and reduce the brain damage of heart attack victims.

Brigade Council Chairman Mr. Colin Curtis recently returned from Bournemouth, England after attending a meeting there with over 7,000 Brigade members from around the world.

He said they discussed "items of mutual interest'' and one of the ideas he brought back to the Island was to equip the brigade's ambulances with defibrillation units.

"Most people understand what a cardiac event can do to the heart but I myself was unaware of the damage it can do to the brain if the heart stops functioning properly. There is a threshold of four to six minutes before you can expect to have irreversible brain damage.'' He said the survival rate of one type of cardiac arrest is increased from two percent to 40 percent if a defibrillation unit was used.