Now two men from the Dumfriesshire village who were lucky to survive serious heart attacks are hoping to save the lives of locals who might suffer a similar fate.
Ken Hutchison and Jim Carruthers have teamed up to transform the village’s old public telephone box into a defibrillator unit.
They don’t want to leave others’ chances of survival to good fortune and hope the life-saving machine will be on hand if and when it’s needed.
Ken, who runs The Manor Country House Hotel in the village, said: “When the local phone box came up for sale I bought it for £1 and planned on putting it in the hotel grounds to house cards and information for local businesses.
“But then Jim, who is a customer, said he’d seen an old phone box being used down south as a defib and suggested we do something similar here. It seemed a good idea because there are a few people in the village who have had heart bother.”
Ken contacted the Community Heartbeat Trust, which is campaigning for defibrillators to be installed in phone boxes, and he has just had the Torthorwald unit refurbished.
The 65-year-old knows first-hand the importance of having a defib at close quarters.
“I’d been getting pains in my back for a couple of months and had gone to get it checked,” he explained.
“Doctors at Dumfries and Galloway Infirmary couldn’t find anything wrong with my back, so they put me on a treadmill.
“While I was on it I started to feel fuzzy and the last thing I remember is asking if I could stop.
“I had a heart attack on the treadmill and they resuscitated me with a defibrillator. I was just lucky it happened there.”
Six months earlier, engineer Jim, 67, was on a break at work when he suffered a cardiac arrest.
“I had left the workshop and gone over to the canteen and that’s the last thing I remember.
“I had no pain, no feelings, nothing.”
Luckily a man in the yard knew CPR and kept Jim alive until an ambulance arrived.
He woke up in hospital four days later and has had a defib fitted in case of any further heart issues.
Neither Ken nor Jim had any previous heart complaints.
“It came completely out the blue, which just highlights the fact you don’t have to feel ill,” said dad-of-two Ken, who is married to Caroline.
Ken and Jim raised more than £2,000 to help transform the phone box into a life-saving unit.
It’s been spruced up and now the defibrillator will soon be put in place.
“Once installed it will be in the centre of the village, in the hotel grounds, and we’re going to organise training courses so everyone in the village knows how to use it,” Ken said.
Jim added: “Hopefully it will never be used, but if it saves one life it’ll be worth it.”
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