NORTH Yorkshire rail travellers could be among those who benefit as one of the region's main stations becomes the first in the country to be provided with life-saving equipment.

Public Health Minister Yvette Cooper visited Leeds City Railway Station to see a demonstration of how heart defibrillators can be used to save a life after a cardiac arrest.

Ms Cooper said: "Only three in every hundred people survive a cardiac arrest in England and over 12,000 people who suffer a cardiac arrest do so in a public place.

"We need to improve that survival rate and this initiative could help to save the lives of many of those people." She added that over 700 defibrillators would be placed in busy public places across the country over the next year, in a £2 million Government-funded scheme that was the first of its kind in Europe.

Five the machines will be placed at strategic points around the station, through which over 23 million people pass each year, and 40 staff there have been trained in their use.

Treatment needs to be provided within a few minutes of a cardiac arrest to increase the chances of survival.

A defibrillator is a small piece of equipment which can deliver an electric shock to treat someone who is in cardiac arrest.