Training urged for automatic defibrillators
Published 9:00 pm Sunday, September 12, 2004
ALPHARETTA, Ga. – When rising prep football star Ryan Boslet suddenly went into cardiac arrest during a workout in his school gym, a portable defibrillator was only the length of a basketball court away in the athletic director’s office.
But it was never used.
A school staff member couldn’t figure out how to operate it. Coaches called 911, then administered CPR to the 6-foot-4, 270-pound defensive tackle. The 17-year-old teen died later that day.
Boslet’s death a year ago points to a larger problem: Ordinary people, even with training, often can’t use the increasingly popular defibrillators under the pressure of an emergency.
Chattahoochee High School had only recently obtained its defibrillator and the model it got was different from the one on which school officials had trained.
When Boslet’s heart attack occurred on Feb. 20, 2003, the trained staffer couldn’t find the device’s pads, which were tucked under a flap inside the box. The adhesive electrode pads, placed on the chest, are needed to deliver the electrical shock that can restore heart rhythm. School officials thought the device was not operable and no one else tried to get it to work.
Because defibrillators are more affordable than ever, they are quickly becoming commonplace in schools, businesses and other public places such as airports. Health officials estimate 200,000 to 300,000 portable defibrillators exist in the United States, although the exact number is not known.
Experts say even trained operators can falter if they don’t regularly train on defibrillators. Merely having the $2,000 devices is not enough.
In one report in a medical journal, volunteers had trouble opening the device’s packaging and failed to properly place the pads that deliver the shock. Better instructions on some models may help more people use them, according to an article in the July issue of the journal Prehospital Emergency Care.
Another study published last year indicated defibrillators were used only slightly more than a third of the time by rescuers in places where the devices were nearby. About four out of five nonhealth workers couldn’t use them properly when training on mannequins, according to the December issue of the Journal of Dental Education.
That’s why groups such as the heart association and hospitals like Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta are working to train more people about the warning signs of cardiac arrest, how to administer CPR and use the defibrillator.
Patients who receive CPR and a defibrillator shock within three minutes of going into cardiac arrest survive 74 percent of the time. Just two minutes longer and the survival odds drop to 40 percent, previous studies have shown.
