LIVE-SAVING crews in Cheddar were celebrating this week after receiving vital cash for equipment. Co-responders and fire brigade workers in the Somerset village were given £1,340 to buy a defibrillator machine to keep on the fire engine.

LIVE-SAVING crews in Cheddar were celebrating this week after receiving vital cash for equipment.

Co-responders and fire brigade workers in the Somerset village were given £1,340 to buy a defibrillator machine to keep on the fire engine.

The money was donated after Winchester Farm company, Inxpress Move, held a charity raffle at The Bath Arms on December 10.

Organiser Helen Watts said: "We decided to raise the funds after a friend of ours was badly injured in a car crash near Priddy on top of the Mendip Hills. When the fire crews arrived to cut him out they didn't know if he was alive.

"He is fine now but if it hadn't been for the boys at Cheddar Fire Station he wouldn't be.

"Everyone in the village knows the crew and we are sometimes guilty of taking them for granted. They are with you within five minutes and are truly brilliant."

The new defibrillator will be used in emergency calls when a victim has gone into cardiac arrest.