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Cities may one day offer special permits whereby AED-equipped cars may share a meter in the handicapped sections. In anticipation, Paul SerVaas, who champions the idea, prepared parking sign covers to be used by Good Samaritans willing to share their AEDs in an emergency.
An inventor and Post associate editor, he also first proposed that the defibrillator could be attached to the auto's existing computer. The AED could use the car's main battery and safely share many components. To further lower cost, the AED could use the car's existing speaker system to deliver its verbal instructions.
"If mass-produced, vehicular AEDs could be considered as cost-effective as air bags, most of which are never used," wrote SerVaas in a July/August 2001 Post article. "If enough Good Samaritans voluntarily equip their cars with AEDs, and if their states issue them with 'AED equipped' license plates and allow them to park in handicapped parking, then people who suffer cardiac arrest near these parking lots might survive."
The special sign covers would be in place only while the defib car was parked in the commandeered spot.
"It is time to make AEDs as common as fire extinguishers," he continued. "Requiring new cars to be AED-equipped would forever change how we deal with public cardiac emergencies. We could all start depending on our cars to help us, instead of blaming them for being in the way of late-arriving ambulances."
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