The device delivers a powerful electric shock to the heart, forcing it to resume beating. Sudden cardiac arrest is one of the nation's leading causes of death, striking approximately 350,000 lives each year. AEDs provide treatment for sudden cardiac arrest and are currently deployed in commercial aircraft, sports arenas and shopping malls to ensure that treatment is only minutes away. The broad deployment of a new generation of portable defibrillators for use by trained lay rescuers can help to save countless lives from this deadly and unpredictable event. We believe that AED training is the next critical and most logical step in strengthening the cardiac chain of survival.
Cardiac arrest can strike anybody, anyplace and often without warning.
Unlike a heart attack, in which blood flow to the heart muscle is temporarily blocked, the primary cause of sudden cardiac arrest is ventricular fibrillation, a lifethreatening condition in which the heart's normal electrical signals become disorganized and erratic, causing the heart to cease pumping blood effectively. Defibrillation, or restoring the heart's natural rhythm by applying an electrical shock, is the only definitive treatment for cardiac arrest. CPR combined with immediate defibrillation is critical because the chance of survival decreases by approximately ten percent each minute treatment is delayed. The current SCA survival rate in the U.S. is only five percent, largely because CPR and defibrillators are not used in time. Refineries and other large industrial complexes, highrise office buildings, agricultural enterprises, airplanes, buses, boats, trains and other areas need AED-trained first responders.