In Seymour, Indiana, police cars are equipped with automated external defibrillators (AEDs) and officers are trained in CPR and AED use. On Dec. 23, Officers James Handley and Mat Carver put that equipment and training to use when they were the first responders to a call to assist an unconscious man.

Seymour, Indiana, police officers Mat Carver and James Handley with the Powerheart AED they used to save the life of a sudden cardiac arrest victim. (Photo: Aubrey Woods, TribTown.com)

According to the report on TribTown.com, the officers arrived to find a 56-year-old man unconscious and without a heartbeat. They began CPR and opened their Powerheart AED. A third officer, Brian Williams, arrived and assisted. As soon as the officers placed the pads on the man’s chest, the AED analyzed the victim’s cardiac activity and advised them to administer a shock.

“It advised to shock (him) and so we did,” Handley told TribTown.com. “At that point he began breathing on his own and had a heartbeat.”

An ambulance arrived and transported the man to the hospital, where he was later reported to be recovering.

Cardiac Science AED specialist Troy Pflugner noted that the quick response by trained officers made all the difference.

“They had a beating heart within two minutes,” he said.

Carver, a probationary officer, had attended CPR and AED training just two weeks earlier.

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A recent investment in automated external defibrillators (AEDs) for the Richland, Washington, school district paid off last week when one of the devices was used to restart the heart of a 15-year-old high school student who suffered sudden cardiac arrest.

Freshman Jeremy Brewer had been outside on the Richland High School campus with friends during lunch break when he suddenly fell to the ground. Students who saw him collapse summoned teachers, who went into action. While two ran to Jeremy’s aid and began CPR, others called 911 and raced to the school gym for a defibrillator.

As it happened, the school’s athletic director, Mike Edwards, was already on the way with a Powerheart AED from his office.

An article about the rescue in the local Tri-City Herald describes how the defibrillator’s audio prompts guided Edwards and the teachers, step by step, through the rescue. After Edwards attached pads from the device to Jeremy, the AED conducted an analysis and determined that an electric shock was required in order to restore a normal heart rhythm. It instructed rescuers to stand back. After administering the shock, the AED told staff to resume CPR.

Just a few minutes later an ambulance arrived and Jeremy was taken to a regional medical center. His heartbeat had been restored, but he required assistance breathing. He was later flown to Seattle Children’s Hospital, where he was reported to be on the road to recovery the following day.

Joan Gribskov, safety manager for the school district, told the Tri-City Herald that when the school district purchased the AEDs this past summer, they didn’t really expect they would be needed.

“We’re certainly thankful we decided to purchase them,” Gribskov said.

This video from KEPRTV.com says that the AED at the school is credited with saving Brewer’s life.

For more information on Washington school AEDs, please contact AED specialist Jeffrey Hoyt.

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Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association’s Big Sky Chapter Leader Daniel Turell with Laurel Volunteer Fire Department Chief Brent Peters and the Powerheart AED donated by the Duran family. (Photo: by Jennifer Ries)

The Laurel, Montana, Volunteer Fire Department has a new automated external defibrillator (AED), thanks to fundraising events hosted by the family of the late Leo Duran and to participation by Cardiac Science. Leo Duran, active in the local Jaycees, died in May 2011 after he was stricken by sudden cardiac arrest.

Daniel Turrell, leader of the Big Sky chapter of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association (SCAA), and Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Joanne Flynn attended the ceremony at which the AED was presented to the fire department. Turrell, a former New York firefighter and EMT,  demonstrated the unit to a group that included Chief Brent Peters, Training Officer J.W. Hopper, and Ambulance Service Director Jan Faught and EMT Miguel Hernandez.

For more information on Montana AEDs, please contact AED specialist Kelly Lucas.

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Ward Alternative School Principal Grady Pruitt with Powerheart AED donated by the Indianapolis chapter of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Assocation. Wtih him, left to right: Kristi Polcsak, her son Tyler Byall, and school nurse Mary Hess.

18-year-old Fort Wayne, Indiana, high school senior Tyler Byall has confronted sudden cardiac arrest, not just once but twice in the past two years.

The first time was last September, when Byall’s heart stopped beating as he slept. Quick action on the part of his parents got him to the hospital, where he was revived using an automated external defibrillator (AED).

Last month, just a year and a day after his own brush with SCA, Byall was on hand to help when a classmate at North Side High School collapsed from sudden cardiac arrest. Byall was the first person on the scene when sophomore Abey Luttman suffered sudden cardiac arrest as she stood near her locker at the end of the school day. Another student ran for a teacher, who arrived to find Byall already assisting Abey.

“I knew what needed to be done somehow,” Byall told a reporter from Wane.com news. “We were there, and we did the chest compression and checked the pulse.”

While Byall and others did CPR, school’s nurse, Sunny Stachera, arrived moments later with the school’s AED. She was able to use the AED to revive Luttman, who was transported to the hospital for treatment.

Luttman, like Byall, now has an implanted defibrillator, and has been able to return to school.

Byall and school staff involved in the rescue were honored in by the Fort Wayne School board in October. The Indiana chapter of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association donated a Powerheart G3 AED to the Ward Alternative School in Fort Wayne in honor of Byall and his role in the rescue.

For more information about Indiana AEDs, please contact AED specialist Troy Pflugner.

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We heard last week from a friend at Cook Children’s Hospital in Frisco, Texas, with the best news possible: Two teachers at a Maus Middle School using an automated external defibrillator (AED) had saved the life of a 12-year-old girl who had collapsed from sudden cardiac arrest.

According to reports on nbcdfw.com and myfoxdfw.com, seventh-grader Kylee Shea collapsed on her way to class. Students called teachers, who began CPR and got the school’s Powerheart AED from a nearby hallway. Teachers Brent Reese and Kristen Goodgion attached the AED, which diagnosed a shockable condition and administered a shock. By the time paramedics arrived, Kylee was alert and talking. One of the school’s hallway video cameras recorded the entire rescue.

Kylee was airlifted to the hospital, where doctors said that the timely use of the AED had saved her life.

“If it wasn’t for this machine and what they did, our daughter still may be with us today, but she wouldn’t be the Kylee we know,” Kylee’s dad, Mike Shea, told the local NBC news station.

Kylee, who had successful surgery to implant a heart pacemaker, was able to return to school this week. She appeared, along with her family and her teachers, on The Today Show to describe the rescue and talk about the importance of AEDs in schools.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

View more videos at: http://nbcdfw.com.

September 29 is World Heart Day, a time to focus attention on what can be done to promote heart health and prevent cardiac disease. Heart disease and stroke are the world’s leading cause of death, claiming 17.1 million lives each year.

Across the globe people are holding events, conducting health screenings, and attending conferences on topics like healthy diet and exercise, cardiovascular research, cardiac rehabilitation, and heart-safe communities.

Here at Cardiac Science we’re thinking about the people we work with, all over the world, who are making their communities heart safe by installing automated external defibrillators (AEDs). Communities that create a chain of survival (awareness of sudden cardiac arrest, available AEDs, CPR- and AED-trained citizens, and well-prepared emergency services and hospitals) can increase survival rates for witnessed sudden cardiac arrest — usually about 5 percent — to as high as 50 percent.

Here are just a few of the innovative AED programs launched in recent months:

Escola Básica Integrada da Boa Água AED program, in Sesimbra (Setubal), Portugal. In December, 2010, this became the first school in Portugal to install an AED. The school, which has some 800 students, is equipped with a Cardiac Science Powerheart AED G3 and 12 school staff members have been trained by Med First and certified in AED use.

The University of Otago AED program in New Zealand. Twenty-five new AEDs were installed on campus and staff were encouraged to attend one-hour training courses offered by the New Zealand Red Cross.

The municipal PAD program in Girona, Spain. Girona launched the largest public access defibrillation (PAD) program in Spain with a purchase of 650 AEDs and more than 250 “intelligent” AED cabinets.

An innovative car-based AED program in the Czech Republic. In Prague, Powerheart AED G3s are deployed in Smart cars that can travel quickly throughout the city, even on the narrow streets of Prague’s Old Town.

AED training in Columbia, S.A. Proyecto Latir (“Project Heartbeat”) offers free CPR/AED training courses for private companies, hospitals, and government agencies.

A $10 million PAD program in Ontario, Canada. Government funds were allocated to put AEDs in public settings including hockey arenas, recreation centres, and high-activity schools in the province.

A map of the campaign to put AEDs at football clubs throughout Victoria.

Heart-safe sports fields throughout Victoria, Australia. Football clubs have taken the lead by raising more than $150,000 in private funding to equip sports facilities with AEDs.

Project Heartsafe, developed by Great Plains Ag Credit to increase heart safety in Texas. This group recently provided more than 70 Powerheart AED G3s to first responders and key public safety agencies in the Texas Panhandle.

Awareness of the effectiveness of a community-based approach to heart safety is spreading across the globe. World Heart Day is an ideal time to find out more about what you, your school, your workplace, and your community can do to prevent needless deaths from sudden cardiac arrest.

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What could have been a very sad start to the fall sports season at Azle Junior High in Azle, Texas, had a happy ending when bystanders used the school’s automated external defibrillator (AED) to restart a 13-year-old football player’s heart.

Firefighter Mike Leatherwood with a Powerheart AED G3 similar to the one used to save a seventh grader's life. (MyFoxDFW.com image)

The seventh grader was involved in a collision during the game Tuesday night and collapsed on the field. According to news reports, off-duty firefighter Mike Leatherwood, coach Tim Spoonemore, and nurse Rita White coordinated the rescue. The coach retrieved the school’s defibrillator and started CPR. Leatherwood used the Powerheart G3 AED to restart the boy’s heart.

“We hooked it up and the machine said one shock was advised,” Leatherwood told the Star-Telegram. “I gave him one shock and his pulse came back immediately.”

The boy, whose name was withheld at his family’s request, was flown to Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth. He was reported to be in good condition the following morning. School administrators said that AEDs have been available at the school since 2007.

Find out more about the AED rescue in this MyFoxDFW.com video:

Adults Honored for Saving Collapsed Azle 7th Grader: MyFoxDFW.com

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The webinar “AEDs: Increasing Sudden Cardiac Arrest Survival Rates in Your Community” is now available as a free archived download on the Firehouse.com website.

This is an hour-long presentation by AED experts Michael Schwartz, battalion chief with the North Lake Tahoe Fire District, and Doug Randell, EMS training officer with the St. Louis Fire Department’s Public Access to Defibrillation (PAD) program.

Battalion Chief Michael Schwartz

EMS Training Officer Doug Randell

Schwartz, vice-president elect of Nevada Project Heartbeat, explains how his department helped lead the creation of an AED program for the popular resort region of North Lake Tahoe. North Lake Tahoe now has one of the country’s highest survival rates for sudden cardiac arrest. Schwartz tells how they planned, launched, and now manage, that successful program.

Randell talks about the challenges of managing one of the largest urban PAD programs in the country. He shares his expertise in AED training, deployment and equipment maintenance — critical issues for PAD programs in communities of any size.

Schwartz and Randell both provide valuable insights on ways to fund AED purchases and related training and maintenance activities.

You can access this webinar, sponsored by Cardiac Science and Firehouse.com, on the Firehouse.com website.

Find out at this free webinar Sept. 14

How did the community of North Lake Tahoe become one of the safest places in the U.S. to experience sudden cardiac arrest (SCA)? The Sept. 14 webinar “AEDs: Increasing Sudden Cardiac Arrest Survival Rates in Your Community” explains, step by step, how this community equipped itself to save lives with automated external defibrillators (AEDs).

Battalion Chief Michael Schwartz

EMS Training Officer Doug Randell

The webinar sponsored by Cardiac Science and Firehouse.com lets you hear directly from Battalion Chief Michael Schwartz of the North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District and from EMS Training Officer Doug Randell, who manages the St. Louis Fire Department’s Public Access to Defibrillation (PAD) program — one of the largest PAD programs in the country.

Schwartz, vice-president elect of Nevada Project Heartbeat, will talk about how his department played a leading role in preparing the the North Lake Tahoe community to save more lives. Randell, an expert on AED training, deployment, and equipment maintenance, will share best best practices on how to create a heartsafe community, large or small.

Attendees will learn how to launch and manage Public Access Defibrillation (PAD) programs in their own communities, and find out ways to stretch limited funds to equip their departments with AEDs.

“AEDs: Increasing Sudden Cardiac Arrest Survival Rates in Your Community”

September 14, 2011, 2 p.m. EDT

Sign up for this webinar today at the Firehouse.com website.

Connor Freed, age 5, died from drowning at a community pool in Crofton, Maryland on June 5, 2006. In the aftermath of his death, his parents dedicated themselves to raising awareness of pool safety and improving safety conditions at Maryland pools. Their mission includes equipping pools with automated external defibrillators (AEDs) and ensuring that lifeguards are trained to use the machines.

A Powerheart AED G3 donated by the Connor Cares Foundation. (Photo: Michelle Stephenson)

Debbie Naegle-Freed, Connor’s mother, told the Edgewater-Davidson Patch online news site that the Connor Cares Foundation hopes to provide a defibrillator to every pool in Anne Arundel County — and has the goal of improving pool safety state and nationwide. This year the foundation has provided defibrillators for three area pools.

The foundation also works closely with Maryland State Senator Katherine Klausmeier to advance legislation that would require AEDs at county or municipal pools.

For more information on Maryland AEDs, please contact AED expert Cheryl Anne DeHart.

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