{"id":646091,"date":"2025-12-21T10:45:42","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T10:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/646091\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T10:45:42","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T10:45:42","slug":"liverpool-dad-wants-to-make-defibrillators-as-common-as-fire-extinguishers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/646091\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool dad wants to make defibrillators ‘as common as fire extinguishers’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark King has worked tirelessly since his son’s tragic death and now wants to set up a unique centre in his name\"MarkMark King with a photo of his son, Oliver King<\/p>\n

A campaigning Liverpool dad has revealed more details about his plans for the country\u2019s first cardiac testing and prevention centre, which he hopes will be in the home city of his late son. Oliver King was just 12 when he died in 2011 after suffering a cardiac arrest during a swimming lesson at King David High School in Wavertree<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Oliver died from sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS). In his memory, dad Mark, 63, set up the Oliver King Foundation<\/a> a year later and has helped to deliver more than 7,000 defibrillators across the country.<\/p>\n

He estimates more than 80 lives have been saved due to the work of the foundation in his son\u2019s name. Mark was honoured with an OBE<\/a> for his services last month and revealed his desire to create the UK\u2019s first centre to hold specialist cardiac testing facilities.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the ECHO<\/a>, Mark has now urged Liverpool Council<\/a> to help the foundation make their dreams a reality and get to work on a building for the proposed centre.<\/p>\n

Mark said: \u201cWe\u2019ve got plans for a wellness centre. I hate this word rehab, so it\u2019s gonna be called the wellness centre.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve applied to the council, they\u2019ve earmarked six sites. Hopefully, we\u2019ll get one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the foundation was established in 2012, Mark has personally delivered all the defibrillators to schools, businesses, and sporting venues as far north as Stornoway and as far south as Portsmouth. The foundation, which also provides training to use the machines, has received support from former Liverpool footballer Jamie Carragher.<\/p>\n

Mark said: \u201cThe reason behind the testing centre is that we\u2019ll bring kids in and we\u2019ll give them a 12 pad ECG test and we make sure that they\u2019ll get a certificate to say their little hearts are okay, and they can carry on playing football and doing the sport that they love.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to get the people who\u2019ve had cardiac arrest and heart attack and have had defibs fitted in the chest, and pacemakers. They\u2019re under the care of hospitals for so long then they get an exercise plan and a diet sheet and told see you later.<\/p>\n

\"YoungYoung Evertonian Oliver King, who died aged 12, pictured alongside his dad Mark<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople forget it\u2019s the mental side of it that people are missing. The people who have had the pacemakers and defibs in the chest, they\u2019ve got to go home and sit in the house.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere we\u2019ll come along, we\u2019re knocking on the door, and we\u2019re saying \u2018no, come to the testing centre.\u2019 We\u2019ll have cardio nurses there, I\u2019m going to get them on the walker machines and they\u2019ll meet like-minded people, there\u2019ll be a caf\u00e9 area for them to all chat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll get them out in the fresh air and they\u2019ll start living again. It\u2019s a big building that we\u2019re after so we can do a lot of a lot of things inside the building.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark said he also wants to help other charitable organisations to get off the ground and use the centre as a base for them to get started. He added: \u201cAnother thing that I found when we were starting the charity is we couldn\u2019t afford premises, so we\u2019re gonna put pods in, and people who are starting out in new charities, they can come in and work from the pods.\u201d<\/p>\n

The campaigner shared with the ECHO <\/a>how he broke Royal protocol when he met King Charles in November during the ceremony, and that he had discussed the proposals with Cllr Liam Robinson, leader of Liverpool Council, during a chance meeting. He said he understood a process had to be followed when it came to the allocation of land for the centre.<\/p>\n

\"MarkMark King proudly shows off his OBE<\/p>\n

Mark added: \u201cYou know, we\u2019re not saying we want it for nothing, a peppercorn rent or something like that, but we will be investing in doing it up. It\u2019ll be for Liverpool and the surrounding areas and even further afield.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been inviting parents to come from everywhere. I want to see defibs as common as fire extinguishers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Ol [his son Oliver] gives me the incentive. He never let us down once and we won\u2019t let him down now. I\u2019m only carrying his name, it\u2019s him that\u2019s behind it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis wouldn\u2019t have happened if he hadn\u2019t passed away, so this is for him. What we put down makes perfect sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a building there. It\u2019s been empty for 10 years or something like that, maybe more? It needs to be reintroduced back into the community and the council have got the power to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to the ECHO <\/a>about Mark\u2019s plan, Cllr Robinson said: \u201cWe\u2019re working very closely with them on the kind of options they\u2019ve identified, because it\u2019s going through a lot of that community asset transfer process, and there\u2019s lots of other community groups that also expressed interest in some of these sites. Quite clearly we\u2019ve got to do that in a very methodical, fair way.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe work Mark and the whole of the Oliver King Foundation do is absolutely phenomenal so one way or another, we want to make sure that we can support them and this can come to fruition. Working through the different options, I\u2019m obviously not going to pledge different pieces of land to different people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to go through the process absolutely appropriately, but we\u2019re completely committed to making sure they can continue to be not just the great success they are, but the vital and inspirational work we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark King has worked tirelessly since his son’s tragic death and now wants to set up a unique…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,4884,179,14487,74915,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-646091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-liverpool","12":"tag-liverpool-council","13":"tag-oliver-king-foundation","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115757156765647562","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}