I am a former ER nurse, CPR and paramedic instructor which has given me lots of experience on this topic and I am going to suggest to you before you get a NO AED tatt on your chest you may want watch a few videos on youtube to see how an AED actually works. In brief, it is the AED not the responder that determines if you are in ventricular fibrillation and the machine gives the responder voice commands to shock or not to shock. Ventricular fibrillation is the ONLY rhythm and reason which defibrillation is indicated be it determined by an AED machine or a paramedic.

Our hearts are muscles and the mechanism that causes them to pump is electrical. When someone is in ventricular fibrillation they still have electrical activity but it is chaotic and will not cause the heart to pump, but is still in a electrically receptive state for which receiving a shock can often convert the heart to an electrical rhythm that will restore pump action. The time someone is in venticular fibrillation is very brief so seconds count. If V-fib is not reversed then asystole (flat line) follows which is no electrical activity and is extremely difficult to reverse especially if a significant amount of heart muscle damage has taken place.

I suggest you take one of the free CPR AED classes. It gives all the information you need in order to properly use the A E D. You will find out that the device will not shock unless it deems it necessary. It will only shock if no heartbeat is present. You can be passed out and have a heartbeat and the device will not shock but will tell the responder to continue CPR. Excellent class and in an active senior community, it is good to have as many people as possible trained.

Thanks for the lecture. Haven't had one of those since my Mom died almost 20 years ago. Too bad all of you have missed my point about the cost of the program. It's not the minimal amount each one of you puts up it's the cumulative cost of this program in the 100 or so Villages where it's been implemented. At about 5k per Village that's the $500,000 cost I'm talking about. Might actually be worth it if someone could just come up with several examples of when and where the neighborhood program was implemented and if it did or did not save any lives. Your post was also most informative as it implies that the names of non contributors in the neighborhoods might not be protected. If that premise is in fact incorrect I should have no problem at my next Holiday party.

Do you have an alternative proposal??

In our neighborhood contributors and non contributors are covered.

You're welcome.

And the golf course conditions? Do you think they are better?

They are so much better. Thank you for asking Gracie!

Excellent post. You beat me to it. At the risk of muddying the waters I'll just add that unless they have changed things the last few years, V-fib and V-tach are the two rhythms that the AED reads and will shock. The main point you are making that folks need to realize is that the AED reads the heart rhythm and makes the call.....not the rescuer. Time is heart muscle folks, that is why the use of an AED trumps CPR and should be attached to any unresponsive person ASAP. For the record as a former career firefighter/medic/NYS EMS Instructor I have done CPR and used both automatic and manual AEDS many times with sometimes excellent outcomes. And since I'm in The Villages everyday doing inspections, if I ever go down and become unresponsive, PLEASE use the AED on me.....thank you.

Yes until the current aeration schedule started. Now they suck again!

Yep. Do nothing and save 1/2 million!

Wow! Nothing more - just WOW!

Half a million??? No. Half a million dollars' obligatory expense billed to everybody in TV?? No.

$50 to $100 per year per household, voluntarily, in a neighborhood unit per year? YES!!!

All of which is why organizing a sustainable budget, getting training, gathering voluntary funding, and being pro-active neighbor-to-neighbor, at the grassroots level is always better than waiting for some elected officials or a developer to do it for us.

It is our choice. It's nobody else's business except our neighborhood unit.

That's why this is a great country, and an American hometown that looks out for each other!

Saving one life.....priceless!

And saving one life could substantially lower a hospital bill that might otherwise be well north of $500k.

Hospital bill will be about the same if aed was used or not..not going to skip medical treatment just because an aed was used once you get to ED and then cardiac ICU...of course if end results are cardiac death there will be minimal hospital bills.