CPR AED | Father of the bride collapses at wedding

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CPR AED Father of the bride collapses at wedding
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he best day of Dr. Ralla Shrits life turned into
her worst nightmare in a matter of seconds. As
she was cutting the cake at her wedding
reception, her 60-year-old father collapsed and
went into cardiac arrest in a Cincinnati hotel
ballroom. For 10 excruciating minutes, nobody
could find the hotels automated external
defibrillator, or AED. Thanks to physicians at
the wedding who performed CPR until an AED was
located and used, Shrits father survived and is
expected to make a full recovery. But shes upset
that hotel staff couldnt immediately find the
lifesaving device and she wants to make sure
others dont die because of similar delays during
cardiac emergencies in public places.
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We are lucky we had a room full of medical
professionals who started CPR within seconds, but
most people dont have that at their disposal,
said Shrit, a surgical resident at Good Samaritan
Hospital in Cincinnati. Hotels and public
places need to have more AEDs, they need to be
more accessible, and every staff member needs to
know where to locate them, she said. Nobodys
asking public places to make clinical decisions
about peoples lives. All were asking is that
they have the tools necessary to give someone a
chance to make it to a hospital. Shrits story
underscores the dire need to improve access to
AEDs and to educate the public in how to save
lives, said Clifton Callaway, M.D., Ph.D., chair
of American Heart Associations Emergency
Cardiovascular Care Committee.
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We want to create a culture of action where
every citizen is able to rescue another citizen,
said Callaway, a professor of emergency medicine
at the University of Pittsburgh. We cant just
hope for faster and faster emergency medical
services because there will not be a paramedic
over your shoulder every moment of your
life. The AHA is helping to spread that
message June 1-7 with the annual National CPR and
AED Awareness Week. More than 350,000 people have
cardiac arrests out-of-hospital every year in the
U.S., but only 46 percent get the immediate help
from a bystander they need before professional
help arrives. CPR can double or triple chances of
survival, especially in the first few minutes of
cardiac arrest.
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Just as anyone can perform CPR, anybody can save
a life by using an automated defibrillator, said
Michael Kurz, M.D., an associate professor of
emergency medicine at the University of Alabama
at Birmingham and a volunteer with the AHAs ECC
committee. The big misconception is that AED
use requires training when, in fact, any member
of the public can use it in an emergency, Kurz
said. "The AED walks a lay responder through the
steps using spoken audio cues. I taught my
daughters fourth-grade class CPR and how to use
an AED. If a 10-year-old can use it, any member
of the lay public can. Still, AEDs cant save
lives if they go unused.
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Its a tragedy that a cardiac arrest occurs
within yards of an AED and it isnt applied.
Perhaps bystanders or 911 dispatchers arent
aware its available, Kurz said. Most AEDs cost
1,200 to 1,500, according to Kurz. The AHA
encourages anyone who buys an AED to inform the
local EMS office so 911 dispatchers will know
its there. The first barrier with AEDs is a
lack of awareness, Callaway said. One of our
initiatives is to advocate for communities to
develop good registries of AEDs in their area. If
youre at a hotel or a convention center and you
call 911, they should be able to quickly pull up
a map of your location and say, Theres an AED
100 feet behind you go get it. The AHA also
is helping to improve CPR instructions for 911
call-takers.
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If someone calls 911 and says, This person is
in cardiac arrest, dispatchers now have a set of
guidelines by which they can provide CPR
instructions, said Kurz, a past chair of the
AHAs Telephone-CPR task force. Learn more about
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