Town Pump grant funds four AEDs for Helmville community

A recent successful grant application to the Town Pump Charitable Foundtion funded four Zoll Automated External Defibrillators for most of Helmville's public buildings.

Kate Appleford, who owns the Copper Queen Bar with her husband Tommy, said she was prompted to write the grant when she started training to become an Emergency Medical Technician.

"We realized Helmville really doesn't have any in public areas, and we're an aging community," Kate said. The only one the community had prior to the grant was with the town's Quick Response Unit.

The public access AEDs are designed to be used by just about anyone to treat people in cardiac arrest and allow people to help a victim while they are waiting for the QRU or an ambulance. The Lincoln Volunteer Ambulance responds to the Helmville area to augment the Helmville QRU, but takes at least fifteen minutes to cover the intervening distance.

"Community AEDs are important when EMS are not there," Tommy said.

The AED's are being installed in the Helmville Community Hall, St. Thomas Catholic Church, the Community Fellowship Church, and the Helmville School. The Applefords also purchased one with their own money for the Copper Queen.

Tommy said having so many AEDs in the small community could be seen as overkill, but he said it was important for each of those facilities to have one, due to the aging population in the area.

Kate also noted that having one at the school is also important since there have been cases around the country where AED's have been used to save kids with heart complications.

"The one at the school is already set up with pediatric pads for younger kids, that one's all connected, ready to go," she said.

Kate said Helmville has a particular connection to the Town Pump chain of gas stations many may not know. She said the mother of Town Pump founder Tom Keneally Sr. mother was a Geary from Helmville. She said the name of the business was derived from the old community water well in Helmville that was referred to as the town pump.