On March 18, 2025, Patricia Hodges, a resident of Tinajo, lost her husband after suffering a cardiac arrest in Lanzarote. He was delivering orders in Puerto del Carmen, as one of the owners, along with his wife, of a company that supplies hygiene and cleaning products to the bars and restaurants on the island, when his heart stopped.
According to Hodges, a couple of tourists who were having a drink at the bar tried to revive him without success. "If we had had access to a defibrillator and adrenaline sooner, this poor man might still be alive," said one of the men who tried to save his life and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation for 45 minutes, until, he says, the police arrived and then the first ambulance. In addition, he pointed out the importance of everyone knowing how to perform resuscitation and that defibrillators were available so that the population could access them.
As a result of suffering this loss, this neighbor has started a campaign through the crowdfunding network Go Found Me to try to raise funds to get defibrillators to more corners of Lanzarote, especially to those places that cannot afford it.
"I am raising funds to supply defibrillators and training in CPR, choking and the use of defibrillators to bars and restaurants within the tourist areas of the island," she said during an interview with La Voz. Her idea is to start with the tourist areas because "they have a lot more people" than other spaces on the island. Meanwhile, she has highlighted that in Tinajo, the municipality in which she resides, "there is the greatest availability of defibrillators" that she has seen on the island.
The training, which she says costs 100 euros per person, would be aimed at workers in the restaurants in the spaces, while the defibrillators cost around 1,795 euros. "Some businesses can buy them, but many others cannot afford them," she continues. At the moment, the campaign has managed to raise more than 160 donations and exceed 4,500 euros, for a target of 5,500.
Likewise, Patricia Hodges argues that "unfortunately many lives of residents and tourists have been lost on the island for not having access to defibrillators and because no one knew how to use them," she concludes.
