Easy As Pie: Money Raised By Boston Pizza Helps Pay For Life-Saving Automatic Defibrillator Machines

Winnipeg Free Press:

Somewhere in southern Manitoba, there’s a person who can thank a pizza for saving their life.

An automated external defibrillator is being credited for saving the life of a patron who suffered cardiac arrest at the William Glesby Centre in Portage la Prairie a few weeks ago.

But the automated external defibrillator (AED) that saved that person’s life was purchased and installed thanks to Boston Pizza through its annual fundraising initiative to help the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Manitoba.

“It just shows the more AEDs we get out there, the more lives we can save,” said Diana Bayles, the foundation’s resuscitation/AED program manager.

“Three minutes is our golden time to get to a person when they go down. With CPR, you have a five per cent chance, while with AED you have a 75 per cent chance.”

Randy Davison, the manager of the Boston Pizza in Portage la Prairie, said he’s pleased and humbled that an AED machine paid for, in part, because of the pizza chain’s fundraiser, saved a life in his area.

“I thought it was very fortuitous the machine was placed there,” Davison said.

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