Wareham parents Alison and Simon Colvin are raising funds for defibrillators in memory of their teenage son, whose life may have been saved if there had been one nearby.
When 13 year old Shaun Colvin went into cardiac arrest after a sudden onset asthma attack, Alison and Simon tried to keep his heart beating while they waited for the ambulance to arrive at their Northmoor home in Wareham, Dorset.
Shaun, pictured with his family at the beach, was just 13 when he died in April 2024
Too far away to get back in time
But the nearest defibrillator to them was inside Wareham Golf Club, which was still closed at that early hour, and Wareham’s other four were all too far away to get back to Shaun in time.
A defib is a device that gives a high energy electric shock to the heart of someone who is in cardiac arrest, which can be lifesaving.
Although medical experts would like to see a time when no one is ever more than 400 metres away from a defibrillator, the two large housing estates of Northmoor and Northport in the Wareham area, don’t have a single one between them.
Now, less than a year after the death of Shaun, Alison and Simon have set up a GoFundMe page in his memory aiming to raise £6,000 to buy at least three defibrillators for their community, and are already halfway to the target.
However now the search is on to find a suitable place to locate them, which is proving surprisingly difficult, so with help from the Swanage Community Defibrillator Partnership, the important issue is being thrust into the limelight.
Floral tributes were left to Shaun at Lytchett Minster School, where he was a pupil
“My husband felt our son’s heart stop”
Alison Colvin said:
“When Shaun was four he had a brain tumour, but with him it was never ‘Why me?’, always ‘What can I do to help everyone else?’ and he set about raising many thousands of pounds for the Brain Tumour Charity through his life.
“People who knew him, know that he was someone who did good things, he was all about kindness – he always turned something bad into something good, he was only ever positive and smiled every single day of his life.
“When my husband and I went through what we did with him that morning, it played on our minds an awful lot that we didn’t have everything which might have helped to save his life within our grasp.
“That day was absolutely horrendous and not something that anyone should ever have to go through, still less with a child. It was a sunny Sunday morning just before everyone was up, my husband and I heard a noise and ran to our son.
“We struggled to wake him and knew something was very wrong. As I was running for a phone my husband felt our son’s heart stop.”
Shaun always had a smile on his face and found the positives in every situation
“Time was of the essence”
Alison continued:
“Simon got Shaun’s heart restarted a couple of times while we were waiting for the ambulance, but we didn’t have a defib handy to put on his chest, which could have possibly got his heart back into a rhythm and potentially have saved his life.
“We are both defib trained and both first aid trained, and we knew time was of the essence, the main aim is to get a defib on as soon as possible, but within three to five minutes to significantly improve your chances.
“I sent a relative off to try to get one while I called for an ambulance, but the nearest one to us is in a building that was shut overnight and there are no other defibs close enough when you factor in the journey there and back plus making the call to get the pin code to open it.
“There are a lot of ifs and buts which mean that Simon and I don’t have the privilege of knowing whether or not it would have helped Shaun on that day, which is a horrible thought.”
Shaun’s love of wildlife, and nature videos which he uploaded during the pandemic, got him a mention on Winterwatch
“Shaun was kindness personified”
After so many Purbeck families paid tribute to Shaun in the weeks after his death, Alison and Simon decided they would do something in his name to repay the kindness of the local community.
Alison Colvin said:
“Northmoor is a huge residential area and there are a lot of people without access to a defib, which got us thinking about setting that right for the community.
“Lots of people in the community care about Shaun and know of all the good he did and so we thought we should direct all the support we have into making a difference for other people.
“My son was simply wonderful and throughout his life did so much good. He was kindness personified, and it is wonderful to know that in his name that goodness still continues.
“We had a lot of positive response through our social media pages, and that’s where Swanage Defib team came in to support us, offering to get us started with a defib in Shaun’s memory, and then giving us advice and support on raising money to buy others.”
Swanage Community Defibrillator Partnership is supporting Alison and Simon on their mission
Problem of where to place defibs
One of the first problems that Alison and Simon encountered was where to place a defib in Northmoor, which has no businesses or public buildings.
While defib units can be installed on private houses, they need covenants and public insurance in place and are not always visible; and while other towns and villages have located them in redundant telephone boxes, they have all been removed in Northmoor.
Elsewhere in the UK, they have been installed on lampposts, as they have a readily available power source, but in Purbeck when an agreement was drawn up governing what could be attached to street lights, defibrillators weren’t commonplace and so not included.
Although talks have begun with street light company Enerveo, bureaucracy is slowing down the process – but the team is determined to press on in the name of saving lives.
Richie and Laura Rivers at Rivo’s Hub in nearby Sandford have already agreed to take the first defibrillator in Shaun’s name for the area and are fundraising independently, with the first £1,000 already under their belts.
Swanage’s latest defib unit was installed outside St Mary’s Primary School in January 2025
Swanage units deployed 240 times
Swanage Community Defibrillator Partnership now hopes that other firms in Wareham and across wider Purbeck will come forward and help raise funds and awareness for the life-savers.
Ian Brown from the Swanage Community Defibrillator Partnership said:
“We are always there to help and support other people to provide defibrillators for their community. We have been doing this for 10 years and know how important it is that in an emergency a device is relatively nearby, as they are in Swanage.
“It is part of what we call the chain of survival, the CPR skills, that there is a defibrillator nearby as every minute that passes also takes away a 10 per cent chance of survival, and that people know what to do in an emergency and how to use the defibs.
“I absolutely admire what they are doing in Wareham in honour of Shaun’s memory, and if we can continue to support them and others, then that is all for the benefit of the communities.
“Four of us set out together ten years ago hoping to fundraise for four defibrillators in Swanage and now we are just approaching the 50 mark, and those units have been deployed more than 240 times. We are now in a position where we have to start replacing the original devices because things get old, and are damaged by the salt air.
“Part of our tenth anniversary plan will now be to ensure the longevity of the project. We can’t do this without help, support, donations and fundraising from the public which has kept this project going and evolving for the past ten years.”
Shaun and his granddad helped with a project to put hedgehog nesting boxes around Sandford St Martin’s School in February 2024
Further information
- Donate to the campaign at Simon Colvin’s GoFundMe page
- Swanage Community Defibrillator Partnership news is shared on its Facebook page
