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Private groups who want a $2,600 defibrillator would still have to pay for it.
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 10, 2001
LECANTO -- The Nature Coast Emergency Medical Services board approved a program Wednesday to provide training and certification for groups that want their own automatic external defibrillator, a heart-jolting device that people can use while an ambulance is en route.
Homeowners associations or companies that want the $2,600 machine would still have to pay for it, Nature Coast executive director Theresa Gorentz said. But the ambulance system will provide everything else free of charge, including four hours of CPR training, three hours of training on the defibrillator, inspection and certification of the machine, and 11/2-hour annual refresher courses, she said.
"The biggest thing it does is give us the opportunity to go out there and teach people CPR, because that's part of the (defibrillator) training," Gorentz said. "There's that horrible feeling when you see someone collapse in front of you, and we want to give people the skills to know what to do."
The portable defibrillators have become increasingly common in recent years. Gorentz said a couple of groups have asked Nature Coast Emergency Medical Services how they can get their own machines.
The machines are designed to restore a normal heart rhythm to patients undergoing ventricular fibrillation, a kind of heart spasm. Once someone tapes the machine's sensors to the patient's chest, the device will read the heart rhythm and automatically decide how much jolting, if any, is needed.
"The American Heart Association has proven that for every minute that goes by that you don't receive this shock, your chance of survival decreases 10 percent," Gorentz said.
As part of the ambulance system's Public Access Defibrillation program, Gorentz said, Nature Coast will identify which sites have the machines and which areas still need them. Ideally, Gorentz would like the 911 computer system to show where the defibrillators are so dispatchers can tell callers where to find a machine while waiting for an ambulance to arrive.
"Every time we can introduce something into the public that gives that person the opportunity to spend one more Christmas with their family, we want to do that," Gorentz said.