Great Harwood Otter swimming club were delighted to welcome Mark King and Joanne Galloway from the Oliver King Foundation to their club on Weds evening, during one of their clubs training session,

Mark kindly delivered two defibrillators and gave a talk about the importance of clubs like ours having defibrillators accessible to all, as his own son Oliver tragically passed away whilst swimming in 2011, if there had been a defibrillator at poolside it may have made all the difference, and a machine like the ones he brought could potentially have saved Oliver’s Life, since then Mark has campaigned tirelessly to Councils and the Government and he has gained over 100,00 signatures to present to the Government urging them to act now and make defibrillators readily available and accessible to all.

Our ASA member club, a nationally recognised holder of the Swim21 accreditation for best practice teaching /coaching and professionalism in all that we do, led by our Otter coach team we realised that our swimmers and their families could be well served and benefit from the addition of a defibrillator at poolside here at Mercer Hall Leisure Centre.

“Knowing that our swimmers now swim in an even safer environment is very important to our club” said club secretary Joyce Miller “and the defibrillators will have much wider benefits to the community of Great Harwood.”

Joyce Miller welcomed Mark to the club and said “the Otters were privileged that Mark king could visit our club, as he now travels the country raising awareness of how vital it is to have defibrillators in centres like Mercer Hall Leisure centre”, Mark gave a passion filled interesting and insightful talk and then presented our club with the defibrillators we had ordered through the Oliver King Foundation” Joyce thanked Hyndburn Council and Hyndburn Leisure for all their support of the Otters, and was delighted that council representatives Cllr Noordad Aziz, Cllr Kerry Molineux and Cllr Gareth Molineux had attended Marks visit, Heather Alexander from Hyndburn Leisure management team received the defibrillators on behalf of the Otters and will now plan training sessions for staff and Otter coaches.