I was a volunteer in our neighborhood's initial AED program. Here's how it works, as I remember: there are a group of people who volunteer for the program. They are given CPR and AED training and a box is installed in a central location in the neighborhood. When a resident calls 911, an automatic call goes out to the resident group of volunteers. One person is assigned to go to the AED box while the others go directly to the patient and check to see if CPR is needed. If so, they begin the process. There is not just one person who is called to respond, so if someone isn't available, others are there to respond. It has been shown that neighborhoods with this program have a higher survival rate for heart attacks than those without one. (If you're going to have a heart attack, it would be to your benefit to have it in The Villages. That's according to a yearlong study done by The Villages Daily Sun, in which they found that The Villages residents are four times more likely than other Americans to survive a cardiac event. This is due to a number of factors including the amount of AED's available throughout the community, the proximity of fire department to resident's homes, and more. – The Villages Daily Sun)
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