To go with 2 pictures

By Andrew Gorosko

Two locations in Newtown, a large factory and a major public building, are leading the way in the region in providing people who suffer cardiac arrest with a much better chance of survival.

Kendro Laboratory Products, a Pecks Lane centrifuge manufacturer which employs 400 people, already has several automatic external heart defibrillators (AED’s) in place.

Edmond Town Hall on Main Street plans to keep on hand an AED for heart emergencies in the heavily used building.

AEDs are small, battery-operated devices which 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 10 percent.

After as little as 10 minutes, very few resuscitation attempts are successful, according to the heart association.

 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,” said Nancy Nicol, of the heart association.

Kendro

Danbury Health Systems recently assisted Kendro Laboratory Products with emergency medical treatment training in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR), basic first aid, and defibrillation. Kendro recently purchased several AEDs for use in the factory.

Kendro is the only company in the area which has an employee first aid team trained in the use of defibrillators, according to Burt Cieply, a Kendro manager. Mr Cieply, who is an emergency medical technician (EMT), says it is important to have defibrillators on hand in the event that an employee or visitor experiences cardiac arrest.

Use of a defibrillator to provide immediate assistance increases a victim’s survival rate and can often mean the difference between life and death, according to Mr Cieply.

The 14 employees on Kendro’s volunteer first aid team received defibrillator training. The first aid team includes employees from engineering, manufacturing, and administrative positions.

Michael Pederson, an emergency medical educator who provided the defibrillator training to the Kendro first aid team, said Kendro is one of the first companies in the region to own defibrillators. “Kendro has set the precedent, and now you’ll start to see other companies doing the same,” said Mr Pederson.

Edmond Town Hall

Edmond Town Hall plans to obtain an AED in July, after which town hall staff members will be trained in its use.

Besides the normal flow of traffic to municipal offices, the building contains a heavily used movie theater, gymnasium, and function room.

The AED will be kept in a central location in the building for easy access in the event of a heart emergency, according to James Crouch, chief dispatcher at the building’s emergency communications center. Building staff members will determine the best storage location for the $3,000 device, Mr Crouch said.

 It will take about 41/2  hours of training for town hall staff members to learn CPR and defibrillator operation, according to Natalie Dos Santos, director of health and safety for the American Red Cross Western Connecticut Chapter. Ms Dos Santos also is a volunteer with the Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps.

“When somebody goes into cardiac arrest, time is of the essence,” she said.

If the victim lacks a heartbeat, CPR is administered. If the victim has an irregular heartbeat, the defibrillator is used to shock the erratically beating heart to a stop, so that the heart can resume its normal rhythm.

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

The defibrillator is a piece of equipment that town hall staffers hope they never have to use, said Clark Kathan, head of Edmond Town Hall maintenance.

Deb Aubin, the community-training specialist for the ambulance corps, said it is a very responsible action for the town to keep a defibrillator on hand at Edmond Town Hall. “This is something that is really necessary,” she said, terming equipping the building with a defibrillator “a progressive move.”

Mr Crouch said he hopes that every local public building eventually is equipped with a defibrillator.

All public buildings should have defibrillators on hand, Ms Dos Santos said, adding, “You never know when a cardiac arrest will hit.”