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Less than three months after a group of Mahurangi West residents bought a defibrillator for their community and visiting boaties, the life-saving device has been stolen.
Sometime on November 6, callous thieves jemmied open the locked case and took the device that was installed at the top of the Jamieson Bay boat ramp, at the end of Jamieson Road. Residents who had clubbed together to buy the $4200 defibrillator were gutted to find it had gone.
“How low can some thieves go?” one asked. “What can you get for it – surely you can’t sell it on?”
The residents had paid for the device from a community fund.
“We thought let’s invest in a defibrillator – with all the boaties in the harbour, we’ve had a couple of incidents before where one was needed, and the nearest one is up at Mahurangi West Hall.
“I only hope nobody passes away because we don’t have the defibrillator any more.”
Warkworth Police Senior Constable Hamish Buick said the theft was “mindless”.
“It’s a very unusual offence,” he said. “I don’t know that there’s a ready market for secondhand emergency medical devices. It’s only really useful to people in an emergency or maybe someone with a chronic heart condition.”
Jamieson Bay residents said they would now be considering whether to have a collection towards buying a replacement device.
