One hundred lives a year could be saved by the Echo's new campaign.

The Have a Heart campaign which launches today aims to get vital defibrillators in communities across Lincolnshire.

These crucial pieces of medical kit can be used by ordinary members of the public and can literally mean the difference between life and death for someone who has suffered a cardiac arrest.

The Echo has teamed up with the Lincolnshire Integrated Voluntary Emergency Service (Lives) to raise money to buy 42 defibrillators.

The state-of-the-art machines send an electric shock to the heart to restore a normal heart beat of a patient in cardiac arrest.

At a cost of £2,000 each, defibrillators are currently used by trained volunteer lifesavers belonging to Lincolnshire's 98 Lives groups who help the county's ambulance service by providing lifesaving care.

Medics say that evidence from the US, where they are much better at early defibrillation, reveals that 35 to 40 per cent of people in the community survive a sudden cardiac arrest.

In the UK where paramedics are under pressure to meet a government target of attending 75 per cent of potentially life threatening 999 calls in eight minutes, the survival rate is just five per cent.

But with trained volunteer lifesavers in the community that can reach a heart patient within six minutes of a cardiac arrest, evidence shows we can save 100 out of the 1,000 county deaths each year.