Each Village may have hundreds of homes, perhaps even 1,000, 2,000, or more.

To have one organization to handle takes a lot of responders and managers, as well as thousands of dollars. That is a huge task.

Here in Marsh Bend, I am the coordinator for our neighborhood of 103 homes. We have 2 AEDs, and asked for $100 from each home to get the project started. We got about 80% participation, and a few homeowners contributed more than what was asked. Even a few of the homes that were rented contributed.

My wife and I are the overall neighborhood coordinators. We have a private email list, a private Facebook group, a periodic newsletter, and a monthly social.

We call ourselves the Marsh Bend Reserve.

We have approximately 15 primary responders, and have trained about 22 people.

Yes, not everyone believes in the overall AED project, but that is ok and understood.

I know some of the other coordinators south of 44, and am very thankful to other coordinators and VPSD who helped us get started.

It takes a bit of work to get started, as well as serious project management skills.

Good luck, and thank you to the volunteers who start and maintain these efforts.

Rate and ratio
 

Wow. This thread caused me to look into some review. Found much better than a review here. Shockable Rhythms | ACLS.com

Been a while since my last CPR course. Are they still just recommending compressions at a rapid rate without intervening "breaths"? Never mind. Shamed myself into googling it. Are Rescue Breaths Necessary During CPR? - HSI So, 15 and 2 still the ratio and one-one thousand, two-one thousand still the rate? TIA

Agree 100%!!! Your CPR instructor provided you horrible information. I am hoping you misunderstood and he/she is not telling students AED's are more effective.

Aed
 

There is no way they need 25 AED units, 90% of the time the responders will be doing CPR.

We are working with the VSPD closely.

The AED training stresses CPR first and then send the second person to get the AED.

In our Village, we had a group of eight who spearheaded the AED project. We queried residents to see if a majority would like AEDs, invited the TVFD to give a presentation to our community, held a question/answer session, and began receiving donations. We have eight AEDs strategically placed throughout our small Village of 471 residents and over 40+ trained responders. Since its inception, we have had two critical incidents. In each case, CPR was performed and no AEDs were used due to the quick response of TVFD. Based on our training and quick response of our trained volunteers, we prolonged one life.

Since your Village is remote, your closest FD is on Morse BLVD across from Chitty Chatty. Your villages would greatly benefit from having an AED program in place with trained responders. Not sure if you are in Sumter County or Lake County, but in Sumter County, they now have a AED program in place. If a Village has an established AED program, at the end of the AEDs lifespan (typically four years), Sumter County will pay to replace that AED if it meets certain criteria.

Newell is 9 minutes away - if there is no other call. Lake Denham and Dabney more. The planned fire houses are FURTHER away.

Exactly. One complements the other. The moral of this story errr thread is to get certified. It doesn’t take that long to obtain and most importantly pay attention in the classes. FL like many states, I believe has the Good Samaritan Law in effect so you have an obligation to perform and protections as well if you do

Call 911. They alert an app your trained neighbors have.

We are in Hawkins and gladly donated to the program. Most of the retired nurses I know here are on the emergency response team in the neighborhood. Most likely they will get to your door two minutes before the EMTs arrive. If they save one life over the years, that will be the best $100 I ever spent. Most women spend that much on their nails in a month. Nails or saving a life? No brainer for me.

I say LET THE MORSE FAMILY foot the bill. You don't build the biggest senior community in the world and not include these life saving gadgets!

We do not deny service to anyone - in fact, the Lifestyle homes are in Newell. Theee is no sticker on the window. Unless the home denies us access we will assist. The budget is for 5 years. Our hope is fundraising will keep up with expenses after that.

As to the organization, we have supplied meetings, mailed fliers and you see from OP posted on FB so often they posted on TOTV.

Training did say no breaths.

The Villages determines how many and where. We are over 9 minutes from our fire house.

Breathless
 

Fascinating! I do now recall that some of the logic was that two inches of "compression" yields a "rebound" of the chest cavity that would act as a sort of "vacuum" or "negative pressure" that would suck some air in. Enough, I guess, eh?

More questions
 

More googlage:

Using An AED - FAQ'''s

"How much of the victim's clothing should be removed to carry out defibrillation?

The victim’s chest should be exposed to allow correct placement of the electrode pads. For women this usually means the bra must be removed. Clothes may need to be cut off."

Has that been part of the training? Just watched a Doc Martin episode where the lady's bra was left on for the AED shock. Wondered about that. . .

"Is it okay to place the electrode pads directly on a hairy chest?

Electrode pads are required to make direct skin contact in order for successful defibrillation to occur. In an emergency situation where the chest hair is so excessive as to prevent good adhesion of the electrode pad, the hair must be removed quickly."

Hmmm. . .

I wonder how many folks are prepared to do either, especially when I've heard little in this thread related to decision making even to the level of checking for airway, breathing, and circulation. I sorta kinda know a lot of this stuff, but I'm not at all sure that I could perform properly in all the various possible scenarios. I think I could get the compressions going and keep it up until the Fire Department arrives with *their* AED and the other "right stuff". Pulling an old lady's bra off in public? I don't know. . .

Well stated and I agree!

Facebook, like it or not, is widely used in The Villages for communication purposes. I have a friend who had avoided it all her life finally succumb to it at age 67 because groups she participates in uses it. Sounds like the group organizing your AED program is using it as a tool for communication but also using other methods of communication. Kudos to anyone trying to get an AED program initiated and first one to do so therefor has control. I'm pretty sure they have to go through the fire department to set up a functioning alert system and will take guidance from them. Who would be against an AED program in their village?

Experience says nobody is getting out of a sound sleep, answering call, grab clothes, run out the door find the house in two minutes.

Unless they are living in your house, or maybe next door you are asking way more than most can accomplish.

On call (so you know that call is coming) at 3am, call comes i was in my car in 90 seconds because I am sleeping in scrubs, my shoes are at the door. I know that because second call comes at 2 minute mark, asking if you are on your way, and eta. Third call comes at 10 minutes which I would be exiting my car heading in the door.

Why the 3 calls, because even experienced trauma people under the age of 50 have been known to answer first call and slip back to sleep.

As for aggressively soliciting contributions - that may be a personal interpretation from someone who does not want to contribute for whatever reason. In St Catherine we had volunteers go door-to-door to collect, which is probably the standard method of collecting. If you don't want to contribute $100 for whatever reason, then don't, you will still be covered by the AED program. I know of people refusing to contribute for silly reasons such as not being here full-time or being of a younger than average age. That's okay because, like me, many people contributed much more than was asked.

In Buttonwood we implemented AED's some years back but it was done in subunits of the whole village. The Buttonwood islanders was a group of about 50 homes and our social club held several meetings and agreed to move forward. The program included 2 AED's, posts and boxes to secure them and a slush fund to support them for 3 years. This was all done under the auspices of the Villages Fire and Rescue. Also required were 5 to 10 volunteers to get AED and CPR training who further agreed to be first responders. These people were signed up to receive telephone call outs in parallel to the EMS. First responders are usually able to respond within 2 minutes and provide AED and CPR and provide guidance to the house when EMS arrives. In the 5 years we were involved we received 2 call outs. The first was already deceased. In the second our response was 1 minute and we resuscitated the patient and applied CPR for 5 minutes until EMS arrived. The patient survived to the hospital but subsequently passed.

For the AED program to be effective, IMHO, it must be combined with local, trained, neighborhood response.

Villages supplied AEDs
 

There are Villages supplied AEDs at the rec centers and on some Villages owned property. A neighborhood needs committed residents to form a response team and The Villages cannot dictate that.

Will you add to your list….
Haircuts
Groceries
Lawn cutting
Hand holding
Etc.

Maybe you should take the AED training to find out how it’s really done.

There was a cardiac arrest on a pickelball court in St Catherine. An AED was retrieved from the rec center and the man was shocked and came around. He apparently said it had happened to him before. The paramedic doing our training said he would have loved to have seen that because in all his years he has never seen someone regain consciousness. It's great that we have this AED technology available to us to augment. Everyone should be trained in CPR, it could be a loved one's life you save.

It just strikes me as a scam to sell AED's. But when the AED guy down the street showed up at my door a month after I moved in, $100 seemed cheap to avoid becoming an outcast in my new neighborhood. I paid it and that's the last I ever heard from the guy again. He doesn't even wave if he's in his yard when I walk my dog past his house . Oh, well... I guess that's the price we monkey's pay to live in the troupe.

I don't doubt the noble intentions of the the guy with the AED in his yard. I just can't imagine the scenario where it would save anyone's life but his own. So, what are we saying? I grab my shoulder one morning while trimming the shrubs, and some guy in a golf cart happens by who just happens to know CPR, and the phone number for the guy with the key to the AED just happens to be one of the "favorites" in his phone? Luckily, the AED guy two blocks away happens to be home, and moments later, here he comes screaming down the street with the gadget to save my life? And while the gadget is shocking me back to life, he pulls out his phone and dials 911 to fetch the EMT's from the fire station three blocks away?

I dunno. Seems like a stretch. But never accuse me of challenging monkey customs! Just pay it and quityerbichen!

A little understanding of the program can go a long way. There’s no calling the guy with the combo to the AED. As soon as someone calls 911 and reports a cardiac arrest, the AED responders are sent an alert simultaneously to the fire department being toned out.
Our village is broken into zones. When the call goes out the trained responders in the zone where the incident is gets a text alert along with an automated phone message. In most cases the two adjacent zones to the incident will also be activated just to ensure an adequate number of people respond.

I wanted to add some info to this. I've been in the fire service and ems since the mid 80's.

Most importantly the chance of survival diminishes by 10% for every minute it takes to get an AED physically on the patient. The fire dept has a goal of a firehouse within 2.5 miles of a home. With the 911 call, getting on the engine, and driving to the call its 5 minutes. 50% chance. The neighborhood groups add 20% to 30% to the chance of survival.

Absolutely early CPR is the key BUT imagine you rearranged your spark plug wires on your car in the wrong order. You can try to start that car all day and it will never run. A heart rhythm is like those spark plug wires. You can do CPR until the cows come home BUT if the heart is in the wrong rhythm the cpr isn't going to help. Shock the heart into the right rhythm and you are ready to have cpr start than engine.

I read a lot in this thread about the fire dept arriving first. The Villages Fire Rescue is BUSY. They do tons of medical calls every day. You don't need to believe me. Download the pulsepoint app to your phone. Choose sumter county and watch the calls. The unit numbers for the vehicles are shown for each call. Look how many do call after call. While the villlages wants firehouses every 2.5 miles to each home realize your unit can easily be on another call and now your waiting for the one 5 miles or 7.5 miles away. It is what it is. Look at the app and see how busy they are. You will be surprised.

Someone said "AED's run on batteries and in some cases are $2,000" I think they meant the brand new AED is $2,000. The unit the FD recommends now is a little under $2,000 which includes the battery which often is good for several years.

Someone said "what prevents these from being stolen?" many have padlocks and are keyed the same for the AED program and the rescuers are issued padlock keys.

Someone said "Actually the fire department has a program that a box holding a key can be placed on your home to gain entry" this is called a knox box and the villages fire rescue has keys which open the knox box. All of the knox boxes in the village are keyed alike so they can open it in an emergency and pull out your home key. I installed one, it was easy. With sales tax and shipping it was under $230. The vendor is VSC Fire & Security in Orlando 407-679-3332. You want the residential one. here is a short video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N-xXB2510o

All great points and very topical/germane to TV. Thank your for your public safety service sir

Resuscitation Algorithms
 

I am taken aback by the years of public education and the lack of understanding of the general public for the whole issue of initial response and why it is set up the way it is.

The overlying idea of 'CPR' and 'AED' programs is to educate the public to recognize an emergency and activate the rest of the system. They work hand in hand. Then, you go through what you learned in your classes. Here is an outline of initial response and further steps:

https://cpr.heart.org/en/resuscitati...nes/algorithms

Pretty complicated, isn't it? But would not happen if you did not activate the system. The percentage survival drops off greatly if you do not have a shockable rhythm. So you do that as soon as you can. The heart pumping itself is much better than even the most efficient CPR. Doing compressions without breaths was added in the algorithm to remove hesitancy of rescuers to start, so at least something is done and more people taught to activate the rest of the system. This did not replace the 'older' methods of compressions and breaths. There is BLS, ACLS, PALS, and many others... CPR and AED is only a small part.

So at least go out and take one of the classes so you know something about EMS and initial medical response. It does not take much time. Guess that more public education is still needed to get the word out.

Finally, go out and live life. There are many people, actities and places to go here. This is only a small if rare event in our groups. We have a great community here and need to be thankful for families and neighbors. Especially those neighbors willing to organize for public service and learn new things.

We have a village coordinator who sends emails of things going on.
When we started our AED program an email was sent to everyone indicating the cost. We were asked to drop off at one of the residents. (THERE WAS NO DOOR TO DOOR REQUESTING DONE) Those that wanted to did, there was enough to start the program. There are no scarlet letters on anyone’s house OF THOSE that may have not paid (nobody knows) all are responded to if needed.
Recently monies were requested for maintenance and full filled.
This has been a successful program in The Villages by all accounts.
Be thankful there are neighbors willing to include your village!

I also don't use Facebook because I hate Zucherdork.

Sounds like another Newbee, I have been here many, many years, second home. Both times residents of the Village organized and had the AED’s installed and monies collected. Whether a house hold contributed or not, all were included! Up keep is also done the same way. Watch What You Wish For!

PS: Sounds like someone is out to make out! Nobody gives you nothing for nothing!

They have the right to organize whatever they want ,your option is to either join or not, but if you don't they may not come to your aid if you need it one day.

Why is this troubling you?

IMO in some areas waste of money, they never get used, someone with key has to be available and get there before first responders. Course I live in area that has excellent fire and first responders response times. ( within mile from sub station). Sumter county probably not from past history of wait times for first responders? But, if makes you feel may good worth it. In my villa there are 84 or so residents donation amount was $100 for 3. Yes, I donated even though they probably never get used. So far in 7 years they haven’t.

Yes, I would agree. With any effort a (cost) benefit analysis must be done. Before you say a life is priceless has anyone realized that you would need to have a minimum of three people to utilize one of these AED’s, the victim, the spouse or responder who now has to now call 911, the third person to go get the AED or will the spouse just let the person wait there without administering CPR because getting the AED is more important? Lastly, I have not seen one of these at the community pools? Is there one at the community recreation center buildings or pickle ball courts, etc.? Sadly, what if one that was promised in a location is missing, not working, etc?

You sound like a candidate for "Life Alert"...

Pushing the button will call 911, which will initiate the AED process.

Now, if you can't get to the door to open it, sorry, but that's a major problem. You'll have to wait for EMS to arrive and break in...