If Christmas shopping is too much this centre can help you to survive

If you fear that the stress of Christmas traffic and shopping will send you into cardiac arrest, then head for Blanchardstown…

If you fear that the stress of Christmas traffic and shopping will send you into cardiac arrest, then head for Blanchardstown Shopping Centre.

Giving new meaning to the phrase "customer care", the centre will announce today that it has acquired four automatic external defibrillators and eight staff trained to use them.

You've seen defibrillators on ER - those computerised machines which have paddles with electrodes that shock the heart back into a normal rhythm.

Think George Clooney shouting "stand clear" and you've got the idea.

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The machines, which cost about £6,000 (€7,620) each, were donated by the manufacturer, Phillips Medical Systems, and the distributors, Cardiac Services.

Behind the initiative is Dr Joe Galvin, a cardiologist at Blanchardstown Hospital. Dr Galvin is campaigning for a requirement that all public venues catering to more than 5,000 people at a time should have defibrillators and people trained to use them.

"If cardiac arrest occurs during sleep, you are snookered. But when it happens in public, lives can be saved when defibrillators are available," says Dr Galvin.