STAFF from Dawlish College will be jumping out of a plane in support of a colleague’s charity.

A team of intrepid teachers, teaching assistants and site support staff are taking the leap to help college PE teacher Dan Osbourne raise money for his family’s charity Jay’s Aim.

Dan, who lives in Newton Abbot, lost his younger brother Jay in 2017 aged just 28 to an undiagnosed genetic heart condition which caused a fatal cardiac arrest.

Since his death, his family has worked to raise awareness, raise money and provide public defibrillators.

The charity is the college’s charity of the year with the skydive being the latest fund raising event at the end of this month.

Dan’s colleagues, who live in Dawlish and Teignmouth, Val Marc, Emily Fitzgerald, Kev Brooks, Lorna Smith, Annette Moore and Bruce Sibley have volunteered to jump out of the aircraft.

So far, the charity has supplied 150 defibrillators across Devon and Cornwall, with 20 in Newton Abbot and six in Dawlish.

As well as providing the life-saving equipment, the charity provides free CPR training and up to 10,000 people have benefited from this.

Father-of-two Dan, who is also a college pastoral leader, explained: ‘As a charity, we have now trained 10,000 people to use a defibrillator and perform CPR.

‘But we also raise awareness of heart conditions in young people and encourage them to be screened. We are trying to make sure people know about the risks take a more proactive approach to be tested.’

Jay’s Aim now works to prevent young people dying from undiagnosed heart conditions in the south-west.

It raises public awareness and understanding of little

little known cardiac conditions and their symptoms; provides CPR and defibrillator training and provides public-access defibrillators.

After Jay’s sudden death, his family discovered learned he had an undiagnosed inherited heart condition which had caused a fatal cardiac arrest.

A Just Giving page has been set up for the skydive team https://www.justgiving.com/team/teamdawlish?invite=true

Other staff will be taking part in the Plymouth half marathon and 10k runs to add to the fund raising.