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Equipping police officers with AEDs cut response time to sudden cardiac arrest victims by almost three minutes in Miami, Florida, according to a study recently published in Circulation. Expanding the use of defibrillators to police and fire rescue teams saved lives, too.
"The study demonstrates how training police and other lay responders to use AEDs can dramatically improve the outcome of sudden cardiac arrest," said an American Heart Association expert.
From February 1, 1999, to April 30, 2001, Miami-Dade 911 dispatchers received 420 emergency calls for cardiac arrest. Police arrived first 56 percent of the time. Survival was 17.2 percent for 163 victims with potentially fatal heart rhythms. The survival rate had been only 9 percent during the 18 months just prior to the placement of AEDs in police cars.
"The theory is that police are already on the road when a call comes in, so there is a potential for faster response," explained Robert Myerburg, director of the cardiovascular division at the University of Miami School of Medicine and lead investigator of the study.
Researchers in Rochester, Minnesota, implemented a police defibrillation program in November 1990. Over a seven-year period, the survival rate for ventricular-fibrillation cardiac-arrest victims was 40 percent, significantly higher than the national average of 5 percent or less.
As many as 1,200 people a day die in this country because of sudden cardiac arrest--many of whom could be saved by quicker access to automated external defibrillators.
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