A DEFIBRILLATOR has been installed at Partington Shopping Centre, thanks to the success of a fundraising drive.

The relatives of a woman who collapsed and died after a cardiac arrest launched the initiative to provide the life-saving device - to replace one that was vandalised.

Seventy-three year-old Margaret Pickering suffered a cardiac arrest while she was at Partington Working Men's Club with friends, on April 23, and she died 10 days later in hospital.

But the great grandmother's family believe she might have been saved if the defibrillator had been available at Partington Shopping Centre, just 350 yards away.

Margaret's family launched a campaign to raise funds to get the damaged defibrillator box replaced, and thanks to the support of the community it quickly hit its target.

Now the defibrillator has been installed outside Heron Foods at Partington Shopping Centre.

Elizabeth Renney said on the Partington replacement defibrillator page: “Well done everyone! This is fantastic. Thanks for all your time and effort to help Partington get a defib again!”

Defibrillators can ‘shock’ a person’s heart into restarting and, if this can be done in the first few minutes, patients have a 60-70 per cent chance of making a full recovery.

The original defibrillator was vandalised in March, just a couple of months after it was installed by the North West Ambulance Service.