Friday, 2 May 2008 Union demands defibrillators on all major building sites The construction union will use the ALP State Conference to urge the NSW Government to update safety laws to require lifesaving defibrillators on all major building sites. The Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union will instigate the campaign at today’s CFMEU safety delegates meeting after a number of building workers recently died from massive heart attacks, joining an estimated 33,000 Australians who die from cardiac arrest each year. CFMEU NSW Secretary Andrew Ferguson said the union was in the process of negotiating the installation of monitored defibrillators with a number of major builders, but that the government needed to ensure the lifesaving equipment was part of occupational health and safety standards. “Cardiac arrest kills more building workers each year than falls from heights, electrocution and heavy machinery combined, which is why the union is campaigning to have builders install a comprehensive defibrillator system on all major projects,” he said. “We believe automated, monitored defibrillators backed up by workplace training will have the potential to prevent countless families from suffering the needless loss of a loved one.” Dr Don Dingsdag, Senior Lecturer in Occupational Health and Safety at the University of Western Sydney, supports the push for defibrillators on building sites. “When a worker suffers a cardiac arrest it usually comes without warning,” he said. “The heart stops, they become unconscious and they can be dead within minutes. “I discovered this first hand when my healthy wife died without warning at 33 of a cardiac arrest while sleeping, leaving me to raise our two young children on my own. “This CFMEU initiative will allow workers to be treated with a defibrillator within minutes of cardiac arrest which is vitally important as the chance of survival drops 10% for every minute of delay, meaning ambulances are often unable to reach them in time.”