OTTAWA--André Corriveau is alive today because there was an automated external defibrillator (AED) at Earl Armstrong Arena when he collapsed on the ice during a hockey game in 2009 — and someone knew how to use it.
On Thursday, fresh off the ice from an afternoon hockey game, Corriveau, 59, smiled as he looked at the facility’s operator Dana Clarke, 38, the man he calls his guardian angel.
“If I’m here today — I don’t mean in this room, I mean on this planet — it’s because on that day, he was there and he jumped into action,” said the father of three.
Corriveau’s is one of 60 lives saved thanks to the city’s Public Access Defibrillator (PAD) program which has seen 850 of the portable machines installed in arenas, pools, libraries and community centres and emergency vehicles across the city since 2001.
He said he hopes governments begin to view AEDs like seat belts or smoke detectors. “In the ’70s, governments found out that if we install safety belts in cars and make mandatory their use, we’ll save lives. Well, so that’s what they did.”
Thursday’s announcement from Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems to indicate that governments are listening.
Speaking in Saskatoon, Harper pledged to fund the installation of defibrillators in community hockey arenas across the country.
As many as 7,000 Ontarians experience sudden cardiac arrest each year, with only a five-per-cent survival rate.
But in Ottawa, the $1.9-million PAD program has catapulted the city from a two-per-cent survival rate in 2001 to a 12.3-percent survival rate now, only four percentage points behind Seattle, a world leader.
“We’re in the top tier right now in North America,” said Ottawa Paramedic Service chief Anthony Di Monte, who noted that the city used $600,000 of the one-time funding to train every city employee to use the defibrillators. It was the first — and only — time anyone has had to use the machine at the facility.
In addition to the publicly-funded defibrillators, many churches, malls, private businesses and community centres have opted to buy their own and be trained by paramedics on how to use them.
SOURCE: Ottawa Citizen