Corrections for misinformation posted...
The AED program gets many people trained. Volunteers head to the victim first. If someone further away is passing an AED, they grab it and continue on. There is not only one person responding, and wasting time to fetch the AED instead of starting CPR.
Older people can do CPR. Having multiple people to swap is a tremendous help. Having an AED hooked up helps do CPR better. It monitors compression depth and rate, and speaks commands to correct poor form. If I ever need CPR, I would welcome 12 trained retired people coming to help instead of one untrained guy that will tire out after 4 minutes of ineffective CPR learned by watching television.
Survival rates with CPR are not like what television shows. In reality, CPR might lead to a save, and when that happens all the responders are really thrilled that they made a difference that time.
What happens in the real world - before someone reaches an ER doctor - is choreographed chaos. Nobody is perfect and they do the best they can under extremely stressful situations. The goal of CPR is to prolong life sufficiently enough to get the patient to an ER where they have a chance of recovery.
People living across from a fire station should see help arrive within 2 minutes of the 911 call. People 2 miles away should see help arrive within 5 minutes. That is consistently not happening here for some reason. I'd like to know why.
If it takes >4 minutes for CPR to begin, the likelihood of survival is virtually zero. When the FD is taking 5 or 8 or 10 or 15 minutes to arrive, that is why the program is necessary and valuable.
Many of the what-if things posted are covered in training. That's why people get trained - to know what to do. Saving just one human life is worth it.
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