cedd Posted June 30, 2014 Share Posted June 30, 2014 Hi EveryoneI'm currently looking at a very shiny new Portable Defibrillator. We've had 8 or 10 of them at work for a number of years, and have had 6 people have heart attacks in the time we've had them (3 million people per year footfall - it's nothing that we're doing!), 4 of whom have been saved by the devices (they'd have been dead long before an ambulance arrived, but thanks to the unit the ambulance crew arrived to a casualty with a beating heart) and the other 2 were un-saveable regardless of what we'd done. They're a pretty incredible piece of kit. The size of a lunchbox, and anybody can use one! Come across an unconscious non-breathing casualty, grab the defib, open the lid and it tells you what to do. Place 2 sticky pads where the label on the pad shows you (one on the right collar bone, one on the left side of the body near the bottom of the rib cage - if you get them the wrong way round though then it knows and can switch around) and let the machine analyse the heart rhythm. It'll tell you if a shock is advised, at which point you just stand back and press a button. It then does a metronome count for 30 compressions, before repeating the process over again. It won't let you give a shock if it's not safe to do so. My Church are just about to install this one on the outside of the building in a code locked cabinet. Both the cabinet and the defib have been provided by the local ambulance service at no cost to us, we just have to install them and delegate somebody to check the unit once a week (me!). It's got a small heater inside so requires mains, but it'll be pence per year to run. When somebody rings 999 for a suspected heart attack within a certain radius of our building, they're given the location of it and a code for the door. The idea is to get the unit on a casualty quicker than an ambulance can get there. Every minute from cardiac arrest to defib decreases the survival chances by 10%. I'm sure other ambulance services around the country are doing similar, so thought I'd post about it on here. If your theatre is in a community that doesn't have a unit, and is in a central spot accessible to large numbers of businesses, houses, shops or other attractions, you may find they'll give you the equipment for free (well, it's still theirs) so long as it goes in one of these cabinets on the outside of the building. With the number of people through a theatre week in week out, they're a really worthwhile piece of kit to have available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wingwalker Posted June 30, 2014 Share Posted June 30, 2014 My wife is a Heartstart trainer and teaches people how to use a defib in an emergency. it's only a 2 hour course and she always asks the question at the beginning if you had one to hand and someone needed it would you be willing to give it a try? 99% always says no through fear of causing more harm than good as they've seen it on telly and don't want someone to "bounce up in the air" in front of them. However, just two hours later (the length of the course) each and every time 100% attendees will always say they are confident in reaching for the defib and use it and they all say they never knew it was so easy. Well worth doing guys... well worth doing. David. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simontaylor Posted June 30, 2014 Share Posted June 30, 2014 We have a AED in our theatre, and myself as a technician and my manger are both AED trained. Hopefully will never need to use it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pjb304 Posted June 30, 2014 Share Posted June 30, 2014 The university I work for published an article about this very issue in February. Linky. At that point there was only one available on campus in the sports hall (due to a legal requirement), and that was it. They have just announced that they are doing deploying more around campus, including one in a case like cedd describes at the central bus stop, which also happens to be outside the main entrance to the Nuffield Theatre. I was also at Bletchley park with friends and they had an AED (not in a case) mounted to the wall about 4ft off the ground. My friends 4yr old saw the flashing button and pressed it. The device then started to loudly prompt him to attach pads to begin the sequence.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mac.calder Posted June 30, 2014 Share Posted June 30, 2014 The thing about an AED is that it will not "shock" unless the appropriate heart rhythms are detected - so even if the 4 year old played around with it, there is very little chance of him being able to get it to do anything other than talk to him. I am a big fan of AED's - have seen assist in saving 1 life which I am sure would not have been saved without it - where I work we don't have them, but we do have onsite paramedics who have a response time of <4 minutes with defibrillator and ecg, so I don't feel to bad about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pjb304 Posted June 30, 2014 Share Posted June 30, 2014 I know it wouldn't have done anything, it wasn't opened and it scared him when it started talking so loudly, It was just rather embarrassing this thing starting to give defib instructions in a museum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigclive Posted June 30, 2014 Share Posted June 30, 2014 The amount of processing power in modern AEDs (Automatic External Defibrillators) is surprising. When the pads are applied the units analyse the current state of the heartbeat and if it is acceptable then no shock will be possible. If it is in a state of fibrillation it will analyse what's left to determine the exact point to apply the resynchronising jolt. The defibrillation pulse brings all the muscles into sync but I believe you then apply chest compressions to re-establish the heartbeat. If the heart has flatlined and the unit can't pick up any signal at all then it won't attempt a shock. The whole incident is sometimes digitally recorded for future research purposes. The really disgusting thing about AEDs is that the very first development work on them was funded by the American electrical distribution industry because of the extraordinarily high rate of electrocutions of power-line workers. Early units were quite barbaric and consisted of a big transformer on a trolley to apply an uncontrolled shock. It's rather ironic that the American electrical industry still has a staggering number of fatal electrocutions a year due to their policy of encouraging their workers to be "heroes" and work live to minimise down-time of customer power. Despite the AEDs being designed for the linemen and having evolved to the level where they can be considered part of a trucks first-aid kit, they generally DON'T have them. But quite often the offices of the power companies DO in case "someone important" has a heart attack. But then, that's America for you. Another interesting little tidbit of information. While the earliest defibs were being tested on dogs (sorry dog lovers) it was discovered that when the electrodes were pressed onto the chest the blood pressure changed. And that was how they discovered CPR. So what are the prominent brands these days? Philips Heartstart seems a common one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cedd Posted June 30, 2014 Author Share Posted June 30, 2014 Ours is made by Cardiac Science. One of the cleverest things about them is that they can have their log files downloaded after an incident. In the case of one of our 2 fatal heart attacks where the AED was used, the ambulance service were able to sit down with the very upset first aider and talk him through the log file. They were able to see him doing compressions on the trace and were able to tell him that he did everything right and that the person wasn't saveable. Very helpful for him and boosted his confidence in case it happened again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomHoward Posted June 30, 2014 Share Posted June 30, 2014 We just had one installed this afternoon coincidently, which is a Defribtech Lifeline. Don't know any more than that about it at this stage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted June 30, 2014 Share Posted June 30, 2014 Two things please. Where there is one please monitor the battery, it does need recharging very occasionally. When I was shown one there was an "artificial chest" Connect the AED and you could set up different heart rhythms to demonstrate the AED's response -what chip set survives a shock that size?? Have you seen the cost of spare pads for an AED? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigclive Posted June 30, 2014 Share Posted June 30, 2014 Many seem to come with non rechargeable lithium batteries rated for a 4 year lifespan or a surprising number of actual uses. The pads are a high price indeed, but not if you have to use a set for real. They also do training units that aren't real defibs, but emulate scenarios. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted July 1, 2014 Share Posted July 1, 2014 Early units were quite barbaric and consisted of a big transformer on a trolley to apply an uncontrolled shock.I assume that wasn't an AED but a defib. The very first defib was litterally paddles attached to a 110V line cord, just plug it in. The history of defib kit is quite interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wingwalker Posted July 1, 2014 Share Posted July 1, 2014 Based on the Op's original statement it dies seem surprisingly alarming that what appears to be a common enough place to have an AED - i.e. theatre's don't seem to have them. I think the minimum requirement is an establishment where there is a footfall of 1000 or more people. Given that most venues are open to the public in areas such as box offices and cafe's on a daily basis then it would make common sense to have one nearby coupled with at least one trained person per shift. Prices can vary per unit from around £800 to £1500 so in the grand scheme of things they are pretty cheap to have really. Other areas that would benefit are Churches / play groups and community venues, village halls, sports venues and anywhere that has a large gathering of people on a regular basis. Perhaps we ought to start a campaign to get this achieved? David. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Chief Running Brail Posted July 1, 2014 Share Posted July 1, 2014 It is already the case that if you call an for an ambulance from your workplace the controller will ask if you have an AED on site even if the emergency wouldn't seem to require one. Apparently the 999 service are creating a map of locations of premises with AED units so that in the future a member of the public phoning from nearby could be sent to your building to get your AED however there are liability and cost issues to be resolved before this system can go live. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the kid Posted July 1, 2014 Share Posted July 1, 2014 So when the NHS gets privatised and you call 999 1 - who is the person insured with 2 - is there an AED 3 - who owns that AED - the ryan air ones will be foil and a couple of wires and the bupa ones will have a free dried doctor to activate when opened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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