Readers urged to vote for the Daily Echo in Making a Difference award

That is the message from a teenager who survived a heart attack at a Hampshire school thanks to quick-thinking staff and a defibrillator.

Now Sam Mangoro is urging other people to back the Daily Echo’s Save a Life in Schools campaign to get the vital equipment in all Hampshire schools after it was nominated for a national award.

The Echo launched the campaign after Sam collapsed in a PE lesson at Mountbatten School in March 2014, with the defibrillator used to keep his heart beating until paramedics arrived.

Sam and his family have backed our campaign ever since and are calling for other people to vote for Save a Life in Schools to win.

He said: “I would definitely urge people to vote for the Save a Life in Schools campaign. It’s so important for a school to have a defibrillator because it saves lives.

"People take it for granted, but when you have an experience like mine you realise what can happen and for a school it is not too much money to afford to save a life.

“Even if you never have to use it, knowing a defibrillator is there gives you that piece of mind and that makes all the difference.”

The Making a Difference Award highlights campaigns that have made the biggest impact in helping people, with the public invited to vote for their favourite as part of Local Newspaper Week.

And Sam has been in the awards himself after picking up the Young Person of the Year prize from a local radio station at his new home in Sussex.

Sam is continuing to raise money and awareness for defibrillators and so far has raised enough cash to provide two schools with the equipment.

Sam Mangoro returning to Mountbatten School in Romsey for the first time since his heart attack - He is pictured with Heather McIlroy (executive head) and the defibrillator that saved his life

Since the incident at Mountbatten dozens of schools across Hampshire have obtained a defibrillator with many citing the Echo campaign as the inspiration.

Voting for the Making a Difference award is open and the winner will be announced at the Society of Editors Regional Press Awards on May 15.

• Visit localnewspaperweek.co.uk/Making-a-Difference for more details.