YOU have heard of Stop-tober — now people are tweeting 'Shock-tober' selfies as part of a campaign to highlight the locations of life-saving defibrillators in Bolton.

Bolton Mountain Rescue Team has so far come up with the most imaginative picture — tweeting a photo of one of its teddy bear mascots performing first aid on his poorly pal.

The Bolton News has also got in on the act, tweeting a picture of our own defib, which was installed in our offices in February this year.

We became one of 15 town centre businesses to be given one of the life-saving machines.

In 2013 the newspaper teamed up with then Bolton West MP Julie Hilling to launch the Every School-Leaver a Lifesaver campaign to teach CPR in Bolton schools, which is aimed at teaching pupils what to do if someone is suffering cardiac arrest, choking or bleeding.

The campaign run by North West Ambulance Service is urging people to tweet their #findthedefib pictures.

The hashtag has been tweeted more than 2,000 times and with more than 250 defibrillator locations revealed.

MPs, schools, gyms, youth groups, fire services, police officers, sports teams, the AA, supermarkets and business owners have all risen to the challenge to 'find the defib'.

NWAS Community Engagement Manager, Andy Redgrave said: “We thought we may get a few pictures of forgotten defibrillators but we never imagined the response from the public would be so great.

"In the first week alone we learnt of least 40 defibrillator locations that we weren’t aware of previously, we’re currently checking the others we have been told about so as the month goes on, we hope to increase this further.

“We are extremely grateful for the support shown by the public, we’ve even had pictures from Florida, Hong Kong, Spain and Amsterdam.

"It’s heartening to learn that all these people know the importance of having a defibrillator in public places.

"A cardiac arrest can happen to anyone – young or old, at any time and the use of a defibrillator within the first few minutes, while help is on the way, can improve the chances of survival by up to 70 per cent.

“Please keep those selfies coming. In some way, everyone who sends us a picture with location details is contributing to saving the life of someone in their community.”

It is estimated that there are thousands of these life-saving portable machines in the North West which NWAS does not know about.

The location of defibrillators can sometimes be marked with a sign showing a white heart on a green background.

If you see a defib, take a selfie with it and tweet the photo via @NWambulance using the hashtag #findthedefib, giving as much information as possible regarding its location.

Or send the photo via North West Ambulance Service’s Facebook page or email nwasenquiries@nwas.nhs.uk