- Date: 26 June 2013
- Category: Defibrillator Articles
How often do you check your first aid provisions, or know of the first aid provisions in your childs school? Do they simply have a little green box, locked in a cupboard, aside one of a few qualified first aiders? Is it kept in a room that hasn’t been opened since the new guy mistook it for the toilet?
The public is growing more and more aware of the dangers of cardiac arrests and heart failure, with the two year anniversary of Fabrice Muamba’s tragic cardiac arrest at White Hart Lane in March, 2012, coupled with the British Heart Foundation’s (BHF) push on highlighting the dangers of heart disease, is having a readily available defibrillator in your workplace or child’s school become a more and more necessary item? After recently selling numerous defibrillators to schools, we think it is.
The technical side
Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is a sudden failure of the heart’s ability to pump blood around the body and up to the brain. Most of the time, It is caused by life-threatening arrhythmias, which are abnormalities in the heart’s electrical system.
A Defibrillator sends an electronic shock to the heart, which in turn helps to restore a normal heartbeat and get the heart pumping blood back around the body. A defibrillator is essential, in treating a person who has had a SCA. If one goes unnoticed, it can be fatal in as little as two minutes. 250 people die every day in the UK from SCA, this is anywhere from at work, in a learning environment, at home, or out and about.
Always be prepared
As the cost of Defibrillators drop, they are becoming much more commonplace items in public places such as schools, health clubs, shopping centres and airports. According to a BBC report, 24 schools in North Lanarkshire will be kitted out with them by March, 2014, making it the first local authority in Scotland to install the life-saving defibrillators in all of its high schools.
A sudden cardiac arrest can happen anywhere… anytime. Fat, thin, tall, small, out and about or indoors; nobody is safe. Portable Defibrillators are cropping up left, right and centre, as people clock on to the easy to use, portable, life-saving pieces of kit.
“I’m no expert”
Claiming to know nothing about SCA or First aid is no longer a hindrance in being the hero of the day. Some modern Defibrillators come with voice commands. These are designed to talk through the average, un-medically trained, person how to successfully and efficiently deal with someone who has suffered a SCA. Unlike satellite navigation, which profoundly tells you to go the wrong way, make U-turns and slow down when you’re already going too slow – these Defibrillators talk you through every step of the process with the aim of providing maximum usability to both trained medics and civilians. Anybody can perform emergency resuscitation. Anybody can save a life.
A push in the right direction
As people begin to realise the very stern truth behind heart problems, with help from the British Heart Foundation, teamed up with the cheap, affordable, factors of modern day compact Defibrillators – they are growing in popularity. Schools, workplaces, public buildings and homeowners are all warming to the idea of having their own Defibrillator system; whether that be for their own personal safety, or to make sure their residence/workplace is safe and equipped in the event of an emergency SCA for others.
What do the experts think?
We asked Anne Keatley-Clarke, who is the Chief Executive of the Children’s Heart Federation, her views on SCA and defibrillators:
“Many of us are aware of the risk of heart attacks in older people, but we need also to be aware that young people can suffer sudden cardiac arrest too. Medical experts say many children could be saved if a defibrillator is used within minutes of collapse. CHF urge every school to ensure they have a defibrillator available to restart the heart if a pupil or teacher suffers sudden cardiac arrest.”
Defib Facts
For every minute that passes without defibrillation chances of survival decrease by 7-10%.
Heart disease (including heart attacks) was the leading cause of death for both sexes in England and Wales in 2005.
Cardiac arrest patients have a survival rate up to 49% when a defibrillator is used within the first five to seven minutes after the attack.
The survival rate for SCA is less than 5%. This is due to limited AED accessibility.
30% – 50% of SCA victims would survive if AEDs were used within five minutes.
If a SCA sufferer does not need an AED shock, the AED will not deliver.
See our full range of Defibrillators & AEDs that we sell at Direct365 and exclusive Direct365 offers.