New World Centre City Dunedin manager Tony Watts with one
of the defibrillators that are mapped on smartphone
applications. Photo by Peter McIntosh.
Life-saving defibrillators are sitting idle as people
nearby needlessly die, says the creator of a defibrillator
locator.
AED Locations founder Gareth Jenkin said he had taught
thousands of people how to use an automated external
defibrillator (AED) when working as a resuscitation
co-ordinator at Auckland City Hospital, but could not give
his students information on where to find one.
Many people died because a defibrillator could not be found,
he said.
''There's no point in people dying when a potential piece of
life-saving equipment is 50m away. And that happens
regularly. We need to make people aware of where they are.''
He had the idea to build a website to locate a defibrillator
but had no money or knowledge to build it.
But Able Technology heard of his vision and built Mr Jenkin
the website at no charge.
Gareth Jenkin
At
www.aedlocations.co.nz, 2500
defibrillator locations are mapped and a smartphone application
can locate the nearest defibrillator using GPS.
In an emergency, people should dial 111 and then use the
application on their smartphone, which included a function to
speed dial the defibrillator location so it could be rushed
to the emergency, he said.
Any defibrillator owners should contact him with the
locations because the larger the database, the more chance a
life could be saved.
''Cardiac arrests were happening in public buildings and the
defib was not used because nobody knew it was there.''
He entered about 35 new defibrillator locations a week, he
said.
Ideally, people would familiarise themselves with
defibrillator locations before they were needed in an
emergency, he said.
There were three cardiac arrests in Auckland last year where
a defibrillator was in the same building and not used.
''People will buy a defibrillator and put [it] in a Harry
Potter cupboard with no signage.''
Defibrillators were easy to operate and it instructed the
user how to deliver a shock, he said.
An American study found an untrained 11-year-old child could
deliver the first shock in 90 seconds and a paramedic in 67
seconds, he said.
His 6-year-old niece could deliver a shock in 60 seconds, he
said.
''You just switch it on and it tells you what to do. We need
to demystify how difficult these machines are to use.''
People often contacted him to give money, he said.
''I don't need money. It's all done for love. Exposure is
what we need.''
St John Dunedin operations team manager Doug Third said the
chances of survival after cardiac arrest reduced 20% every
minute there was no defibrillator.
The cardiac arrest was like a ''riot'' of random electrical
activity in the heart, which needed a shock from a
defibrillator to restart a normal heartbeat, Mr Third said.
If a defibrillator was not located in five minutes, the heart
muscle would slowly die and stop, he said.
- shawn.mcavinue@odt.co.nz
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