COVERED WINTER 2019

COVERED 32 TRENTBRIDGE.CO.UK James Taylor’s untimely retirement in 2016 has left Nottinghamshire cricket-lovers all too aware of just how serious heart conditions can be. Now, club cricket in the county is set to play a leading role in improving survival rates for those who suffer cardiac arrests. STORY BY Matthew Freeman HE A RT OF THE COMMUNITY “More people die every year of heart attacks than in fires, but defibrillators are still nothing like as common as fire extinguishers.” When put so simply, it’s easy to see why Josh Scully, Nottinghamshire’s Cricket Development Officer for Teams and Leagues, is so passionate about the project to install defibrillators at every club cricket ground in the county. When you look into the statistics more closely, and see that 27,000 people in the UK die each year from cardiac arrests (compared to under 350 in fires), the stakes are high and the cause is profound; something that’s not lost on Scully and his team. And the Nottinghamshire Cricket Board are putting their money where their mouths are, subsidising 50% of the cost of a defib for any interested clubs. “A lot of people can speak from personal experience about family or friends suffering heart attacks, and while we know you can’t put a price on saving someone’s life, we want to make it a no-brainer for clubs to have a defib installed,” he said. “There have been some high-profile incidents of heart problems in sport recently – you think of James Taylor for Notts, and Fabrice Muamba in football, whose stories could have both had far more tragic endings. “These incidents have made the sporting community as a whole more aware of heart conditions. “THERE HAVE BEEN SOME HIGH-PROFILE INCIDENTS OF HEART PROBLEMS IN SPORT RECENTLY... STORIES THAT COULD HAVE HAD FAR MORE TRAGIC ENDINGS.” Josh Scully