Florida Safety Managers Shocked at AED CPR Statistics | CPR & AED Save Lives

July 11, 2009 - PRLog -- How safe is your workplace?  According to OSHA 13% of all workplace fatalities result from sudden cardiac arrest.  According to the American Heart Association, sudden cardiac arrest claims about 340,000 lives each year – or around 930 every day in the United States.  Sudden cardiac arrest, which is the leading cause of death in the United States kills more people than breast cancer, lung cancer, and AIDS combined.  Currently 95 percent of all cardiac arrest victims die.  Yes, I said ninety five percent of all cardiac arrest victims die.

First off, what is sudden cardiac arrest?  Sudden cardiac arrest is caused by a life-threatening abnormal heart rhythm that can result from heart attack, respiratory arrest, drowning, electrocution, choking, trauma or it can have no known cause and it can happen to anyone regardless of age or gender.

What if I told you there was a way to change this statistic from a 95% chance of dying to a 70-80% chance of survival?  The solution - calling for help, followed by immediate and effective CPR, quick use of an AED – Automated External Defibrillator and then getting the patient to the hospital for treatment.

What is CPR?  CPR or Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is the manual circulation of blood and the manual introduction of oxygen into the lungs of someone that is not breathing. This is done by chest compressions and rescue breathing or mouth to mouth resuscitation.  Many people are under the belief that CPR will restart the heart however this is not generally true.  CPR is unlikely to restart the heart, but rather it is intended to manually move oxygenated blood to the brain which delays permanent brain damage.  CPR buys us time until we can use the AED to shock the heart back to a normal heart beat.

In most instances to restart the heart you will need an AED or Automated External Defibrillator.  Unlike the defibrillators with the paddles you see on TV, the AEDs that are in many public places such as airports, marinas, shopping malls, churches, health clubs, golf and tennis clubs and schools are safe to use.  These AEDs are designed to only shock dead people.  By this I mean that these public access defibrillators or AED’s will not shock a living breathing person.  They are designed to only shock people that are no longer breathing.  This means that you can’t connect someone up to this AED and shock them unless they are no longer breathing and in 2 unique types of heart rhythms.

An Automated External Defibrillator or AED is a portable, battery operated electronic device about the size of a laptop computer.  The AED automatically diagnoses the potentially life threatening cardiac arrhythmias of ventricular fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia in a victim and is able to treat the patient by an electrical shock which stops the arrhythmia, allowing the heart to re-establish an effective rhythm.  AEDs are designed to be simple so that anyone can use one.  So simple that I often start my CPR AED classes by selecting someone from the class that has never seen an AED and I ask them to demonstrate how to use an AED by following the AEDs voice instructions.  To date, the youngest person to effectively demonstrate the AED in one of my classes was 9 years old.

I often hear business owners state they are concerned about the liability of owning an AED.  First I tell them that The Cardiac Arrest Survival Act provides AED users and acquirers with liability protection.  Second, Florida has a Good Samarian law that is written to indemnify people who help someone during a medical emergency such as sudden cardiac arrest and finally I let them know that as AEDs become more common, when your competitor down the road has an AED, it may be viewed as the standard of care.  

Think about this, how many fire extinguishers does your company own?  Fire extinguishers are designed to save property whereas an AED saves lives.  Which is more important to your safety program, your customers and your employees?  

In August of 2003, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) conducted a survey.  Of the 400 members surveyed 34% that implemented an AED program used the AED at least once to help save a life.  Of those people in cardiac arrest, 66% were revived by the AED.

Keith Murray is the owner of The CPR School, a mobile training company that provides CPR, AED First Aid safety training for businesses and schools throughout Florida. The CPR School also sells, services and provides consulting for AEDs - automated external defibrillators.  Contact The CPR School at 561-762-0500 or Keith@TheCPRschool.com.

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