By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Potential life-saving devices have been distributed to about a dozen emergency responder agencies in northwest Missouri and northeast Kansas.
They are called Automated External Defibrillators – A-E-Ds for short. They can be used to shock a heart to begin beating again.
Mosaic Life Care’s Pat Dillon says this equipment can be the difference between life and death.
“I’ve heard people say that someone’s out and they get brought back with one of these and they’re like – I’m fine, let me go home – I mean that quick,” Dillion tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “It is just such a life-saving device. It’s exciting to get them out in the region and we’re just happy to be a small part of it.”
AEDs have been given to:
· Andrew County Ambulance District (MO)
· Atchison Holt Ambulance District (MO)
· Buchanan County Fire Chiefs Association (MO)
· Caldwell County Ambulance District (MO)
· Clinton County Fire Chiefs Association (MO)
· Clinton Dekalb Ambulance District (MO)
· Chillicothe Fire EMS (MO)
· Doniphan County Ambulance District #1 (KS)
· Elwood, Kansas, Fire Department (KS)
· Grand River Ambulance District (MO)
· Worth County Ambulance District (MO)
Can an AED actually save someone’s life?
“Absolutely,” Operations Director Steve Groshong with Buchanan County EMS says. “We have probably 350 AEDs in our community that private industry has and it’s not unusual at all for our guys to go on a call for cardiac arrest and have the patient awake and talking when we get there after they have shocked him with an AED.”
Groshong says the AED can save a person until emergency crews arrive.
“We’re going to call a cardiac alert with the hospital and that patient will more than likely be taken directly to the cath (catheterization) lab to have a look at their vessels and possibly an intervention done right there,” Groshong says.
Emergency responders have also been provided with “Stop the Bleed” kits.
Thanks to the community collaboration and support from Mosiac Life Care, Buchanan County (MO) EMS, Missouri Primary Care Association, Altec, Commerce Bank, Kawasaki, Mosiac Foundation, Lifeline Foods and Eagle Communications, funds were raised to purchase eleven AED units to distribute around northwest Missouri and northeast Kansas.
An AED is a portable electronic device that automatically diagnoses the life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias of ventricular fibrillation. The chances of surviving a cardiac arrest decrease by 7-10% with every minute that passes after a person’s heart stops beating. A person has only a 5% chance of surviving cardiac arrest without immediate assistance.