DEFIBRILLATOR GRANTS AVAILABLE for community rugby clubs – click here
With over 1,000 community rugby clubs in England, our goal is that no club should be without a working defibrillator due to lack of funds.
Our Defibrillator Fund has been set up to provide defibrillators to community rugby clubs who cannot afford this life-saving device.
The frightening images of Christian Eriksen receiving life-saving care on the pitch at the recent Euros in front of a global TV audience have highlighted the stark reality that without the timely intervention of trained people with a working defibrillator lives will be lost.
This support is standard procedure for most elite sporting events, but the sad fact is within the community game lives are lost every year due to sudden cardiac events. With over 1,000 community rugby clubs in England, we believe no club should be without a defibrillator due to lack of funds.
To view the rugby clubs and communities who have received a defibrillator or are due to receive one, please click on the map above.
Thanks to the extraordinarily efforts of Rupert Allhusen, who in September 2020 became the first front row forward to successfully swim the English Channel, we have so far supplied defibs to 20 community rugby clubs from 13 different counties across England. You can read more about Rupert’s epic swim here.
In September 2021, ten members of the Richmond Heavies Foundation family set off on the gruelling challenge of cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats. They raised enough money to satisfy around 40 more community rugby clubs around the country with a defib. You can read more about the team’s mammoth cycling adventure here.
The Foundation intends not just to provide the defibrillator but ensure it will be managed and maintained. To that end it has found the ideal distribution and maintenance partner in Community HeartBeat Trust, the UK’s leading defibrillator charity who have pioneered a governance-led approach to ensure the defibrillator:
- is ready 99.99% of the time
- protects the end user
- meets the various liability requirements
Whilst our family of ordinary people doing remarkable things will continue to raise money to support our goal, the reality is to achieve it we recognise will need help. We are open to partnership opportunities. Please contact us for further details.
Thanks