Quote:
Originally Posted by skyking
As a former paramedic I highly endorse this program but the results are probably a bit overstated. According to the American Heart Association the national average for resuscitation following arrest averaged about 9% for the past two years. The "in hospital" survival following sudden arrest was 23%. Lazenby claims over 40% for the Villages. Every hospital has fulltime "code teams" trained physicians, nurses and respiratory therapists, responding with all the medications and resuscitative equipment available only in a hospital. Doubtful that volunteer residents with AEDs would be twice as successful.
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The trained volunteer residents next door or 4 doors away from either of our villas' AED machines can get to the victim within 1 or 2 minutes, whereas the hospital personnel aren't going to get hands on them for much longer than that, especially if the paramedic squad is out on another call when this call comes in at dispatch.
The fire stations and paramedics are close, but if they are out on another call, the neighbor AED responders can make a difference between and death.
I cherish living amongst so many wise, caring and
energetic neighbors. The grumpy, ho-hum few who did't want to contribute might be glad to open the door one night for the energetic, optimistic ones who got the training and stayed with the program.