The Lakes District Air Rescue Trust is fundraising to buy a second Corpuls mechanical CPR device so both the service’s helicopters can be equipped with them.
Trust chair Jules Tapper says the German-made machines, which cost $38,000 each and "somewhat resemble a drill press", take over the exhausting task of performing CPR during a flight to hospital.
It bought the first one five years ago, soon after paramedic Jodie Burton saved a man’s life by doing CPR for 25 minutes while the helicopter was on the way to Dunedin Hospital.
"You imagine putting one hand on top of the other on somebody’s chest, and pushing for 20 minutes at 100 strokes a minute," Tapper says.
"You’d be a bit knackered at the end of it."
He’s hoping for a successful outcome to a request this month for $15,000 from a Queenstown council community fund, but says he’d love to hear from anyone who could help make up some of the shortfall.
It’s all part of his "never-ending" task of raising funds for the Otago Southland Rescue Helicopter Service.
The service covers a massive chunk of the South Island — everything south of a line extending between Haast and Oamaru — and flew more than 1100 missions out of Queenstown and Te Anau last year.
Because it’s not fully funded by the government, it faces an average annual shortfall of between $1.1million and $1.4m, and the trust’s responsible for raising about a third of that amount.
