Sunderland fans urged to back life-saving 'Every Minute Matters' campaign

Sunderland and Leeds players will warming up in specially designed Every Minute Matters t-shirts ahead of their Stadium of Light clash on Friday to help raise awareness of the importance of learning Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

Research from Sky Bet revealed that while many fans will likely need to use CPR in their lifetime – almost half have been in a situation where somebody needed treatment – 45% lack the confidence to step in.

Life-long Sunderland supporter Lee Stephenson met Luke at the Academy of Light today, Wednesday, October 2, to share his personal story.

Lee’s life was saved by then-fiancee when he Amy suffered a heart attack which caused a cardiac arrest in March 2020.

Feeling unwell, he went to bed, where his heart stopped beating. Amy called 999 and was helped to perform CPR by a call handler until paramedics arrived with a defibrillator.

After being rushed to hospital, Lee had two stents fitted to improve the blood supply to his heart.

He was aged just 31 at the time.

The pair married in 2021 and now have two children – daughter Alice, aged two and son Harry, who was born last month.

“Amy had been on a first aid course a few years prior,” said Lee, “but in all honesty, she did not take it very seriously.

“Thankfully, something remained in her memory from that course and she knew what she was doing.

“And the call handler was excellent that night. They told her to shout ‘Push’ on each compression, so they knew whether she was going to too fast or too slow.”

Luke admitted he had been emotional just listening to Lee’s story: “Family is one of the most important things in my life and to have the opportunity to help with this campaign and to be able to spread awareness is very important to me.”

Perimeter boards at the Stadium of Light will call on fans to learn lifesaving CPR and the campaign will speak directly to fans through messaging in Friday night’s matchday programme

It comes as Sky Bet and the British Heart Foundation’s ‘Every Minute Matters’ campaign celebrates a major milestone.

The campaign has helped inspire over 90,000 people to start learning life-saving CPR through the BHF’s online tool RevivR since the partnership began in May – enough to fill one Wembley Stadium.

Launched in May this year by Sky Bet and the BHF, the groundbreaking Every Minute Matters campaign is on a mission to donate up to £3 million for the charity and to encourage 270,000 people to learn CPR – equivalent to three Wembley Stadiums.

There are more than 30,000 out of hospital cardiac arrests in the UK each year, equating to at least five every 90 minutes.

Each minute that passes without CPR reduces the chance of survival by up to 10 per cent and tragically, less than one in ten people survive, often because those around them lack the skills or confidence to perform CPR.