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Automated external defibrillator helps revive woman at Duluth airport
Bystanders used an automated external defibrillator and CPR to revive a woman who collapsed at Duluth International Airport on Sunday afternoon.

By: Steve Kuchera, Duluth News Tribune

The woman was waiting to go through security when she collapsed. Bystanders, including a nurse, couldn’t find a pulse or sign of breathing. A Transportation Security Administration supervisor ran to get one of the terminal’s automated external defibrillators.

AEDs are portable devices that, when attached to a patient, automatically
detect whether the person’s heart is beating irregularly. If so, the device instructs the user to administer an electric shock, which can spur an irregularly beating heart back into a normal, effective beat.

The nurse administered at least one shock and performed CPR until the woman became responsive.

Teamwork helped fallen 8th-grade Jessie Clark player after he collapsed
By Jim Warren — jwarren [at] herald-leader [dot] com

Posted: 12:12pm on Feb 7, 2012; Modified: 2:20pm on Feb 7, 2012

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/02/07/2059144/teamwork-helped-fallen-8th-gr...

Fayette County school district officials said Tuesday fast action by an athletic trainer, safety procedures that worked according to plan and some good fortune came into play after eighth-grader collapsed at a baseball conditioning drill Monday afternoon.
The Jessie Clark Middle School student, identified as Benjamin Highland, was reported in critical condition Tuesday morning at University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital. The incident occurred about 5:30 p.m. on the baseball field at Lafayette High School.

What follows is a recounting of something that happens every day. But it almost always only happens when someone steps up and performs Bystander CPR.

Why is it that Bystander CPR is performed only one third of the time?

Seriously, I'd like to have your opinion. We're trying to fix the problem, and while almost everybody says "Hey. That's a good idea. I need to get trained." it's rare to find a population that is more than 35% trained, and only a third of the cardiac arrest victims receive bystander CPR.

Here's the story of another save.

Bob

_________

Lafayette General honored a Lafayette woman with the Making a Difference award for going above and beyond, giving life saving CPR to a jogger who had collapsed.

Monday, January 9th started as any other day for Gary Dodson. He went to work and then around 11:30 went home for lunch and was planning on continuing his normal routine.

BY MARSHA SILLS
Acadiana bureau
February 04, 2012

“I’m a living example: This is what knowing CPR can do.” Gary Dodson, who received CPR after a heart attack while jogging

LAFAYETTE — For years, Gary Dodson put off attending free bystander CPR training held annually at the Cajundome.

But that changed this year, he told a crowd gathered in the lobby of Lafayette General Medical Center.

“You can make a difference. … Everyone needs to know it,” he said.

And no one knows that better than Dodson, who suffered a sudden cardiac arrest Jan. 9 while jogging in Girard Park.

“My heart stopped,” Dodson said.

A recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philly.com was a cause for concern for the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation. Authors Arthur Caplan, MD, and James Fitzpatrick, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania, cautioned readers about buying defibrillators, suggesting the concept of public access defibrillation may be overrated. More... We beg to differ. Here is our reponse.

As Caplan and Kirkpatrick point out, strategic placement of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) is important. It is also reasonable to prioritize public access defibrillator sites based on the incidence of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), especially when resources are scarce. That being said, it is important for readers to understand that SCA is a public health crisis affecting 295,000 people of all ages every year in the U.S.

Join Susan Koeppen, KDKA TV anchor and sudden cardiac arrest survivor, on the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation team at the Highmark Walk for a Healthy Community, a 5K walk to be held on Saturday May 19 in Pittsburgh. Help raise awareness and save lives. To register, click here.

SAN DIEGO--A piece of equipment saved the life of an El Cajon high school student, and now his family is pushing for all schools to have an automated external defibrillator (AED) on campus.

Last September, Jacob Huerta was in his English class at Granite Hills High School when he suffered a cardiac arrest. He was only 15 years old.

"The nurse came with an AED and the next time I woke up, I was in the hospital," said Jacob, who also suffers from seizures.

After the incident on campus, he was in the hospital for a month. Doctors eventually implanted a defibrillator/pacemaker to regulate his heart, something very unusual for someone so young.

"It's always frightening … to know you're going to go to the hospital, and not know the conclusion when you get there," said Jacob's father, Richard Huerta.

Every school in the Grossmont Union High School District has an AED on campus, but it is not required by California law.

By: Sarah Gorvin, The Republican Eagle
Goodhue County.

When Red Wing School District began installing automated external defibrillators in its buildings a few years ago, high school Principal Beth Borgen said she hoped they would never need to be opened.

“I said, ‘This is the best use of taxpayers’ dollars that I hope we never have to use,’” she said.

But on Jan. 20, a student, whose name or age can’t be released due to privacy laws, sat down while running laps in the gym.

“They thought he was taking a breather,” school nurse Kris Klassen said.

Then the student collapsed unconscious into a staff member’s arms, and people knew something was seriously wrong. Klassen, who also works as an emergency room nurse, was called to the gym over walkie-talkie.

“I’ve been through this before, but not in a school setting,” she said.

BETHESDA, MD--The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has launched two multi-site clinical trials to evaluate treatments for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. One will compare continuous chest compressions (CCC) combined with pause- free rescue breathing to standard cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), which includes a combination of chest compressions and pauses for rescue breathing. The other trial will compare treatment with the drug amiodarone, another drug called lidocaine, or neither medication (a salt-water placebo) in participants with shock-resistant ventricular fibrillation, a condition in which the heart beats chaotically instead of pumping blood.

The NIH has launched two multicenter clinical trials that will evaluate treatments for sudden cardiac arrest that occurs out of the hospital.

The CCC trial will compare survival with hospital discharge rates for two CPR approaches — continuous chest compressions combined with pause-free rescue breathing vs. standard CPR — delivered by paramedics and firefighters to those experiencing cardiac arrest. Trained emergency personnel will give all participants in the CCC trial three cycles of CPR followed by heart rhythm analysis and, if needed, defibrillation.

There have been two trials in Scandanavia that showed 30%-40% improvements in outcome with compression-only CPR. There was a study in Japan that showed that, for a specific class of heart disease, compression-only CPR was not as good as 30 & 2 CPR.