Boothbay region first responders will soon have a simple, yet powerful, tool against deaths from cardiac arrests. Boothbay Region Ambulance Service (BRAS) EMS Chief Dan Gardner has announced, 14 new Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) will be distributed to key community personnel to save lives during a victim’s most critical moments. 

The Centers for Disease Control report that, every year, more than 350,000 people have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in the U.S., and about 60% to 80% of them die before reaching the hospital. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), chances of survival diminish by 7 to 10% for each minute without CPR or defibrillation. AEDs are portable medical devices that can analyze a heart's rhythm and deliver an electrical shock, or defibrillation, to help the heart re-establish its functions. 

“Anything we can do to shorten that window increases chance of survival ... having somebody there as soon as possible is going to be the best thing for the patient,” said Dr. Nick Walter, medical director for BRAS. “We get them in the hospital an hour later and, a lot of times at that point, their trajectory is set in stone. It's what is done in the field for these people who arrest that makes the big difference.”  

The new devices are part of a program called Pulse Point Respond, which pages first responders through an app to let them know about a cardiac arrest in the area. The AEDs will be distributed to fire chiefs in Southport, Boothbay and Boothbay Harbor, and one will be available to each Boothbay Harbor police officer in their cruisers. Gardner said these are the people who have training in basic life support and are the most likely to respond first to an incident. He said the program should be fully operational by mid- April.  

“A lot of times, the fire chiefs and assistant chiefs are around the town, and they're moving around,” he said. “And they could be 60 seconds away, where (BRAS is) eight to 10 minutes away. So, they'll take their AED, get on scene, assess it, apply the pads and get early defibrillation.” 

Gardner said the program is made possible by a $15,000 donation from Schacknow Family Foundation; the foundation provided funds for the AEDs, replacement batteries, and pads for up to five years. Gardner said BRAS will train recipients to use the devices, but they are so advanced and automated they can be used with minimal instruction. The devices verbally instruct a user step by step to avoid confusion during high-intensity events.  

The Boothbay region is already part of a similar program, where a publicly oriented Pulse Point app shows the location of accessible AEDs in places such as town halls and grocery stores. However, Walter said the area will be the first in the state to implement the AED distribution program with the notifications. “We're setting a precedence, and hopefully, the rest of the state follows because, there's nothing but benefit that comes from this. There really isn't,” Gardner added. 

Looking ahead, Walter and Gardner hope to be able to provide more AEDs in the area. They are interested in building a network of trained community first responders in hard-to-reach areas such as Ocean Point. For now, they said the current program will make a difference and save lives.  

“In a perfect world, these would gather dust,” Gardner said. “I see nothing but positive coming out of this. In a tragic incident of a cardiac arrest event, there's nothing better to have as a tool so close to somebody in so many different areas of town than having this here. It's a great, great program.”