The Civil Protection Department deals with between 10 and 25 calls every day, Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici said today. In all, the department answered 5,300 calls over the past year.

While not all the calls were urgent or life or death situations, they underlined the important role which the department had in society, the minister said.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici was speaking at the presentation of three automated external defibrillators to the department, which will be used to treat sudden cardiac arrest.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici said Civil Protection officers have been given basic first aid training so that they could assist people until the medical services turned up at the scene of an emergency.

The equipment was presented to the department by the American company Cardiac Science Inc. and its local agents Technoline.

Those present included the director of the Civil Protection Department, Peter Cordina.

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