Oban Railway Station staff and nearby businesses have been provided with the access code for a public defibrillator after rescuers were unable to open it in an emergency situation.
A man collapsed on the platform on Friday just before 9am as the train was due to leave for Glasgow.
When frantic Scotrail staff called 999 for the access code to the defibrillator located on the Clock Tower in Station Square, the operator had no record of it.
The Scottish Ambulance Service was on scene within six minutes and took the patient to hospital.
A spokeswoman for the ambulance service said: “The Scottish Ambulance Service has a system which centrally collates the locations of thousands of public access defibrillators across the country, ensuring that members of the public can access these in emergency situations.
“As the registration and maintenance of public access defibrillators is the responsibility of each custodian, we will continue to work with communities across Scotland to ensure our systems are up to date. From what we understand, the defibrillator on Station Square in Oban is now available.”
Representatives from the fire service visited the station and businesses located in the square over the weekend to give them the access code to the life-saving equipment.
A spokesman said: “While the provision, maintenance and operation of public defibrillators is not the responsibility of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, we regularly work with our partners to raise awareness of these life-saving devices.
“Following an incident near Oban Train Station on Friday, which we did not attend, fire fighters carried out a number of visits at the train station and nearby businesses to raise awareness.”
The defibrillator was installed by Argyll and Bute Council. A spokeswoman for the local authority said: “Although providing defibrillators is not a duty of a council, we installed and registered this defibrillator to help support an anonymous bequest. As the process for using it depends on calling 999, we did this with the agreement and on-going support of our emergency service colleagues.”
The incident prompted calls for the machines to be installed in all businesses and on trains, in case something similar happens between stations.
Scotrail said that plans were in place, prior to Friday’s incident, to install defibrillators at more than 30 locations across the network, including Oban.
The condition of the man, who was not believed to be local to the Oban area, is unknown.
