AS 1,000 lifesavers have now been trained across Oxfordshire, the campaign to install more than 300 defibrillators is set to hit its target next month.

Dick Tracey, divisional responder commander for South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS), said after the Oxford Mail backed his call for more of the devices, it has “catapulted”.

Yesterday Mr Tracey said: “I will reach the target by the end of March and it’s more than partly thanks to the Oxford Mail.

“The finish line is when you are never more than 10 minutes away from one in Oxfordshire.”

Last July we reported that Mr Tracey wanted to take the number of public defibrillators in the county from 120 to 320.

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Six months later, nearly 100 cabinets have been put on the outside of village halls, pubs and care homes.

Currently Mr Tracey said there are about 216 defibrillators in the county but that the number guaranteed was “far in excess of that”.

He said when he started the campaign, every defibrillator was a benefit, but now he would focus his search.

“This time we’ll have 300 dots on the map showing where the defibrillators are so I can calculate the areas that don’t – those are my target areas.

“Where a large market town has one that’s good, but if you could have three that would be great.”

That map of Oxfordshire defibrillators can be accessed any time on a new, free app launched by SCAS.

And Mr Tracey said the number of people he had trained in CPR, and how to use defibrillators, had also soared thanks to Oxford Mail publicity.

He said: “Six months before the Mail put its arm around my shoulder we trained a couple of hundred people.

“In the six months after the Mail got on board we trained 800.”

His team have now taught more than 1,000 people how to do CPR, he said, so even if someone is not near a defibrillator they have a chance, he said.

He added: “Before the Oxford Mail really embraced the project we were having to explain the whole concept.

“What we’re tending to find now is people have already got most of that knowledge and realise the necessity of it.

“We’re now going along more to talk about the practicalities and what the ambulance service does.

“Only last week a bowls club in Oxford rang me and said we want one of these, can you come in and show us how to use one?”

Two more were installed in Yarnton last week.

Mr Tracey, 59, who lives in West Oxfordshire, said he now wanted to train an “army” of school children to save a life.

Chipping Norton School bought a defibrillator last year and has invited Mr Tracey to come and teach children how to use it.

Deputy headteacher Nigel Sellars, who is trained as a community first responder for the ambulance service, said: “As a school of 1,000 students and 250 staff, we’re the biggest employer in Chipping Norton. Children fall over playing rugby and everyone panics. We are a remote school here so you always have that risk in mind. Defibrillators are easy to use. We ought to train sixth formers and staff who are interested how to use them.”

Download the app at southcentralambulance.nhs.uk/campaigns/startaheart.ashx