Community Defibrillator provision

Yes. That is bloody frightening. I have been trained to use one but I am not anxious to do so and I now wish I had either not been trained or that I had been trained more thoroughly:-(

Big surprise for me when doing a first aid course was the number of nurses also on the course as they don't get first aid training as part of their training.

I never got that nor even instructions to remove clothing:-(

I am a certified RYA First Aider. I had ten hours training and that included tea breaks. It was completely useless but it made plenty of cash for the RYA and covered many peoples arses at the same time.

They have pretty sophisticated systems to avoid shocking if there is any doubt so that shouldn't be an issue

A friend works at a london station that has one and someone was saved by the use of one of these (according to the ambulance crew anyway...)

I guess that's a pretty good result. Never heard of a negative outcome but...

No idea but I can't help but imagine they need a pricy service contract

Darren

Even then, as stated above, the device is "smart" enough to not try an defibrillate where not necessary.

Part of the problem is that they are being referred to up here as cPADs which practically generates no useful hits on search engines. I did a lot better for info once someone mentioned the AED site.

Thank you - this document is incredibly helpful and answers most of the questions and deals with objections that have been raised.

Curiously the demographics of for and against which I deliberately did not mention earlier are decidedly age and experience biassed. Older people and those trained in old school First Aid CPR are mostly against it as are those that have first hand experience on either side of the electrodes. Those most in favour are the younger age group who would be incredibly unlucky to suffer a heart attack in the first place.

From what I can tell elsewhere replacement of the battery every four years and the electrodes when either they time out or get used. The mandated? weekly inspection is a bit of a bind though in an unpaid voluntary organisation supporting a village location.

How weather and tamper proof are the NHS supplied enclosures?

My refresher about a year ago never fired up the machine. It talked and instructed me while the Instructor watched and helped but it was not allowed to give a shock or even demonstrate what would happen if it gave a shock. Very unsatisfactory indeed but it allowed me to be issued with a First Aid certificate and thereby covered the arse of the RYA.

I was told the same about ribs!

Did the bloke get as far as a solicitor?

She was doing it properly then, as I would expect. CPR is not a gentle tap on the chest and it's blooming hard work. I'm not sure how long a single person could keep it up for before they became too tired, 5 mins?

Big IF. Survival rate from a heart attack is not very good, hence all this money being thrown at defibs all over the place.

Would he rather be dead?

Dennis,

I think you missed the point. When people die there will be suits. Did the person die because of the defibrillator? A question bound to be asked. Was it maintained? Were the proper supplies with it? Insurance will be helpful when the answer is no. These defibrillators are not a bad idea but the local council (or somebody) must pay for the upkeep and insurance. That was my point. The council is "a professional". It can and will be sued over the defibrillators. This has nothing to do with the volunteer doing the CPR.

Good luck, Dave M.

No, DSO visited him & told him his fortune.

Becky once tried for over 25 mins.

I was at university in a hall of residence with lots of medics and vets. Their first couple of days were first aid training, which was brand new at the time. This was because there had been many cases of some incident resulting in a call for a medic, but none of the medics having any clue about first aid - it simply wasn't something their formal courses had covered.

I have a friend who is a gynecologist, and he has several times found himself 'volunteered' by friends who know he is a 'doctor' when some incident happens. We were just leaving a social event one night when a kid outside fell off his bike and broke his arm. My friend found himself ushered over to do whatever was necessary whilst waiting for the ambulance. He said it was quite difficult when it first happened because he didn't ever have any training in first aid when he did his medical training, so he had taken the opportunity to jump on a first aid course one of his hospitals had run because this is widespread in the medical profession.

To partly link these points, last time we had snow the area just outside our GPs' practice (private ground) was very slippery. The receptionist said that it hadn't been cleared or salted due to the chance of a suer coming along. There is a defib. in reception though.

It is also handy for the experts back at base even without the zapping with its diagnostic abilities.

She must be fit. I found the video I saw, which features IIRC a rugby team being shown how to deal with an unconscious person. One of them, when asked how long he could keep up CPR reckoned about 10 minutes.

On her own, non stop or switching with her oppo every so often to have a rest?

She is also in the possibly awkward position that once started she (they) cannot stop until some one qualified comes along to confirm what they have known for the last ten mins, that the person is dead.