Ventricular Fibrillation—

Town To Acquire Its 20th Heart Defibrillator

By Andrew Gorosko

With the planned acquisition of an automated external defibrillator (AED) for the town’s public works garage on Turkey Hill Road, the town will have on hand 20 of the life-saving devices that are used, when indicated, to shock a person’s heart back into its normal rhythm, thus stabilizing an erratic heartbeat.

Joseph DelBuono, the town’s director of emergency communications, has overseen the town’s acquisition of the devices during the past several years.

 In October 2000, the town first installed an AED in the inner lobby of the movie theater at Edmond Town Hall at 45 Main Street.

 Positioning the life saving devices in easily accessible public places allows people who are experiencing heart seizures to receive help before an ambulance arrives. People who work in the areas where the AED’s are positioned are trained in their use.

Besides Edmond Town Hall, the town’s AED’s are now located at the senior center on Riverside Road, Canaan House at Fairfield Hills where some town offices are located, at all seven public schools, at the police station, on each of the volunteer ambulance corps’ three ambulances, and on one fire truck in each of the town’s five volunteer fire companies.

When the town’s offices move from Canaan House to office space at the former Kendro Laboratory on Peck’s Lane, the Canaan House defibrillator will be relocated there. Also, an AED will soon be positioned at the public works garage, Mr DelBuono said.

Having an AED available in a public building can mean that a heart emergency victim receives immediate help, even before an ambulance arrives.

Town employees who are trained in AED usage also receive periodic training in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR), rescue breathing, and how to help choking victims.

“You hope you never have to use it,” Mr DelBuono said of the AEDs.

The devices incorporate a safety feature that diagnoses whether a patient needs to receive electric shocks to reestablish a normal heartbeat. If such shocks are unnecessary, the device will not shock the patient.

The AED’s user is guided by a recorded voice emanating from the device. The AEDs contain a battery rated to last five years, but the units are regularly tested to ensure they are in good working order.

The AEDs in public buildings are positioned high off the floor so that children cannot tamper with them.

The town’s decision to position AEDs in public places shows good foresight, Mr DelBuono said. “I think the town has been very pro-active,” he added.

Governments are not required to have such devices positioned in public places, he said, noting that it was a local public policy decision to do so.

A 911 emergency call for medical aid should be made before an AED is used on a stricken person, Mr DelBuono said.

Procedures

If a heart emergency victim lacks a heartbeat, CPR is administered.

If the victim has an irregular heartbeat, the defibrillator is used to shock the erratically beating heart into a normal rhythm.

Based on the results of tests performed with the defibrillator on the victim, the defibrillator sounds basic voice commands telling its operator what to do for the victim. A defibrillation usually consists of a series of shocks to the heart.

Battery-operated AEDs deliver electric shocks to reestablish a normal heart rhythm in people who are suffering from ventricular fibrillation, the most common form of arrhythmia that causes cardiac arrest.

Ventricular fibrillation is a condition in which the heart’s electrical impulses suddenly become chaotic, often without warning, causing the heart to stop abruptly. Victims collapse and quickly lose consciousness. Death usually follows unless responders restore a normal heart rhythm within five to seven minutes, according to the American Heart Association.

Each minute of delay in returning the heart to its normal rhythm decreases the chances of survival by ten percent. After as little as ten minutes, very few resuscitation attempts are successful.

More than 95 percent of Americans who suffer sudden cardiac arrest die before reaching the hospital, representing 250,000 deaths annually.

“Early defibrillation is the critical link in the cardiac arrest chain of survival — the only treatment to correct ventricular fibrillation. The sooner a heart can be restarted, the better the chances of recovery,” according to the heart association.