These 3 Letters Could Save Your Life

This weekend the American Heart Association trained me in and certified me for CPR and first aid. It was the first time in about 16 years I'd been certified to perform CPR, although I had since been trained for particular emergencies (mostly dealing with sucking chest wounds and other battlefield injuries). A few things had changed since my last certification. One of them was something that someone might ask you for one day, and if you don't know what it is, the person being rescued might die. Also, if you happen to be the person in a dire situation, it's imperative that others know what it is, too.

It's called an AED, or Automated External Defibrillator. Until you get your CPR certification, what you need to know about it is this:

An AED could save your or someone else's life.

They're not always available when you need them, but many public places require them. They may be available at malls, airports, and other places where people gather in large numbers. Your work may even have one or several.

I write this now because, up until Saturday, had someone asked me to, "Call 9-1-1 and get an AED," I would have been able to do exactly half of that. I would have been clueless about the second half.

At a minimum, know what an AED is (they are not all identical in appearance) so that you can be useful should anyone suffer a problem that might require the use of one, but I also ask you to consider getting certified in CPR by visiting the American Red Cross or the American Heart Association.

The world is too small to assume it's someone else's problem. - Cam Beck

Comments

[Chris Kieff]

Cam,

Great post. But I think the medical community needs a new acronym, AED is too close IED which is burned into the consciousness of anyone in America today. They could use AD, oh wait that's taken. Well, we'll have to work on that...

Chris

[Cam Beck]

Chris - That's a topic for another post. :)

[Elliot Fisch]

You're right, Cam. The problem is that inspite of AEDs being placed in public places, the command "go get an AED" is useless if you don't know where one is. Even worse is the fact that in most all cases in this county the 9-1-1 dispatcher has no clue where the nearest one is. This is true even though many ordiances or state statutes strongly encourage owners to register their AED. Trouble is there isn't (up until our AED Link system was created) an infrastructure within the EMS community to handle the information or do anything meaningful with it.

Check out www.aedlink.com

Here's hoping you never have to use your new knowledge but, if you do the community you are in at the time subscribes to AED Link. There could be an AED down the hall and it might not get used.

Elliot Fisch
President/CEO
Atrus, Inc.

[Kristin Gorski (KG)]

Thanks for this, Cam! I had no idea what an AED was. This info should really be out there in the public. (It needs some good marketing!)

I'm lucky I got the link to your post via Twitter before it started to break apart.

On a related note: I took an infant/child CPR class. It was an optional class given to parents at an area hospital, and I'm really glad I took it. Great info there, too!

[Cam Beck]

Elliot - Thank you for stopping by and leaving the registry information. The more who know about it, the better.

Kristin - Yes... The infant/child CPR class was a part of mine. It was the first time I had taken it, but also more meaningful, I think, because I now have kids of my own. It was pretty hard to get through, because I kept picturing my kids in that situation.

[David]

Thanks for this great post! Do you think individuals need to buy one of their own?

[Cam Beck]

David - I asked the same question to the instructors. Apparently they run about $1,000, and I'm not sure what the restrictions are on who can own one. They must be maintained regularly.

However, if you have any input in what gets bought at your workplace, it might not be a bad idea to put a word in for the AED.