Defibrillators Are Saviors When Life Is Ticking Away

By Kaaren Valenta

Bill Webb would like to see the day when automatic external defibrillators (AED) are as common as fire extinguishers in schools, businesses, and homes. And now that the state legislature has passed a bill making the life-saving devices more available throughout Connecticut, that may happen.

The legislation charges the State Department of Public Health with developing recommendations that would maximize community access to AEDs.  The Newtown school district plans to have AEDs in all the schools this year.

“More than 250,000 people die each year of sudden cardiac arrest without warning signs,” Mr Webb said. “It can hit any age group.”

In sudden cardiac arrest, the heart begins to beat in a rapid, unsynchronized way and is unable to pump blood throughout the body. The condition, also known as ventricular fibrillation, is an electrical malfunction of the heart. The AEDs are small, easy-to-use devices that shock the heart to normalize the heartbeat.

There are many causes of sudden cardiac arrest — congenital defects, illness, heart attack, environmental conditions, even physical contact. A hard blow to the chest can knock even a healthy youngster or a well-conditioned athlete into cardiac arrest. Dehydration or heat exertion can do the same. Most drowning victims go into cardiac arrest. Anyone, at any age, can become a victim of sudden cardiac arrest.

“The odds of surviving sudden cardiac arrest drop by seven to ten percent per minute,” Mr Webb said. “But an ambulance with a defibrillator on it can easily be ten minutes or more away, especially in a town as large as Newtown.”

Newtown resident Bill Webb is president and chief executive officer of a business management-consulting firm, Pegasys Inc, that serves Fortune 100 clients worldwide and is the authorized distributor of the Public Access Defibtech AED, made by a company located in Seymour.

“The unit looks like a toy — there are no sharp edges and it is very durable,” Mr Webb said. “It is nonthreatening looking and easy to use. And it literally talks.”

The AED’s computer coaches the user by speaking instructions in a clear, loud female voice. The voice instructs the user to take two pads that are in a pocket on the AED, and place them on the victim’s chest. A computer inside the AED then analyzes the victim’s heart rhythm and determines if a shock is needed.

“The AED won’t harm anyone because it won’t work unless the person is in a cardiac situation,” Mr Webb said. “If the pads are put on wrong, the unit will tell you that and will keep telling you that until you get it right.”

If a shock is not needed, the AED unit will tell the user exactly that. “If it isn’t a cardiac situation, it won’t do anything,” Mr Webb said. “It will coach you to check the patient’s airways and to do CPR [cardiopulmonary resuscitation] if needed.”

If a shock is required, the AED uses voice instructions to guide the user. The voice tells everyone in the immediate area not to touch the patient. Then the voice instructs the user to push the big red button on the unit. There is an interactive demonstration of the unit at the www.CardioLifeLine.Com website that allows visitors to actually push the buttons and hear the voice prompts.

An individual can be properly trained in CPR and in the use of an AED in just a few hours. The American Heart Associations HeartSaver AED program, which includes both CPR and AED training, can be completed in three to four hours.

“You can learn to use the AED in ten minutes,” Mr Webb said. “There have been cases where it has been used successfully by persons who didn’t have any training. And it falls under the Good Samaritan laws that protect the rescuer.”

Mr Webb said the American Heart Association has a chain of survivor protocol that should be followed any time someone collapses.

“Call 911 immediately, do CPR if you know it, get an AED on the victim’s chest, and then wait for the EMS teams to get there,” Mr Webb said. “If you do it, in most cases the person will survive, but you have only three minutes to get the AED on the person’s chest if it is sudden cardiac arrest because survival rates drop by ten percent per minute. By contrast, defibrillation within three to five minutes provides for up to 70 percent survivability.”

Prices of AEDs have begun to drop since units were used by the Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps in 1997. Those units cost nearly $4,000. The Pegasys units are simpler, for use by the general public, and they cost less than $1,500 each.

“The unit includes a [computer] card that stores the information needed by emergency personnel when they get to the scene,” Mr Webb said. “Doctors can see what the event was. But anyone can use the unit. It’s considered to be a public access AED.

“To me, that’s the beauty of this product,” he said. “I can see it in restaurants, malls, offices, sports facilities, churches, schools, banquet halls, and homes, especially if someone who lives there has a heart condition.”

Mr Webb, who lives in Newtown with his wife Barbara and their children, contacted the Newtown school district, which is working with the parent-teacher associations and the Newtown Lions Club on a plan to purchase AEDs for each school.

Middle school nurse Barbara Reilly is helping to coordinate the project. The middle school already had one AED, donated several years ago by the parents of a student with a heart condition. The district plans to add seven AEDs – one for each school, according to Ms Reilly.

“The purpose of the AED is to save lives and prolong lives,” she said. “They are easy to use. They aren’t meant to take the place of a paramedic, but they give the person more of a chance to live.”

Several of the district’s nurses are certified to teach AED usage and are CPR certified, she said. “We hope to begin the training of appropriate staff members in the fall.”

“It’s absolutely going to happen,” she said. “It’s such a nice coup for the Newtown schools.”

This week the Board of Education approved the gift of the AEDs. The parent-teacher associations will pay $11,500 and the Lions will donate $3,500 to cover the cost of seven defibrillators. An additional unit will be purchased for the Reed Intermediate School.

“This plan was proposed months ago but we had to wait for the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) to approve the use of pediatric pads with the units,” explained Dr Evan Pitkoff, superintendent of schools. “It was supposed to happen in January, but the FDA delayed its decision to the end of June.”

Joseph DelBuono, the town’s director of emergency communications, said Edmond Town Hall, Canaan House, the police department, and the Senior Center already are equipped with AEDs. A proposal to purchase one for the highway garage was removed from the communication’s department budget during the budget process, but funds may be found from other sources for the purchase, he said.

“Once that unit is purchased, all the town buildings will be equipped,” he said. “The first units that were purchased, from Medtronics, cost about $3,200. But the technology keeps improving and the price keeps dropping.”

Bill Webb said the Defibtech AEDs are being used in YMCAs across the country, at Cendant Mobility in Danbury, and have been approved for use by the City of Trumbull.  They also are being featured in the upcoming August issue of the Robb Report, a magazine that bills itself as “a trusted guide for the world’s most successful, demanding, and educated magazine readers.”

 More information about sudden cardiac arrest and AEDs is available at the American Heart Assocation website at www.americanheart.org.