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About 25 city employees have been taught how to use a defibrillator kept at City Hall. The device can revive a person suffering cardiac arrest.
By ERIC STIRGUS
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 2, 2001
LARGO -- It could happen at any moment.
A visitor walks into Largo City Hall and passes out. The person is not breathing. There is no pulse.
What do you do?
On a wall behind the front desk at City Hall, city officials keep an automatic external defibrillator, a device used to revive people suffering cardiac arrest.
But it won't help if no one knows how to use it.
So city officials recently sent out an electronic message to all city workers about learning how to use the device. About 25 employees responded and have taken the hourlong class.
"I'm very satisfied that we have that number of employees in this building committed to saving someone's life," said Largo Fire Rescue Division Chief Michael Wallace, who spearheaded the training. "The natural tendency in these situations is to run away, but these people have committed to staying and helping save someone's life."
Toni Krawitz, a secretary in the prevention division of the Fire Rescue Department, was the first person to sign up.
"You want to be able to help instead of being a bystander," Krawitz, 29, said. "If anything should ever happen, I could help them if I have to."
Once turned on, a defibrillator will read a person's heartbeat and, if necessary, deliver a shock to return the heart to a normal rhythm, often in less time than it takes for a paramedic to arrive.
In recent years, the devices have been installed at airports, golf courses, sports arenas, churches and libraries. A grant last year from the American Heart Association allowed Pinellas County officials to buy 13 extra defibrillators, which will be placed in courthouses, parks, the tax collector's offices and at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport.
A two-year study of people who suffered cardiac arrest showed a 40 percent survival rate for those treated almost immediately with an automatic external defibrillator. The study was released by the New England Journal of Medicine last year. The 40 percent survival rate is dramatically better than the overall rates, which are between 2 percent and 5 percent.
About 225,000 Americans a year suffer cardiac arrest.
City officials installed their first defibrillator at the Largo Golf Course in 1997. In addition to those at the golf course and at City Hall, devices have been placed at the Highland and Southwest recreation complexes. The city has purchased two more defibrillators, which will be installed at the Largo Library and Largo Cultural Center in October.
"Government leads best by example," said City Manager Steven Stanton, who signed off on the purchase of the devices and the training. "In this situation, in buildings with high numbers of visitors, I think there are some advantages of having (automatic external defibrillators) in the buildings."
The devices cost about $3,500.
The class begins with a video showing a man collapsing in front of his co-workers. One worker calls 911 and attempts cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Another employee remembers that a defibrillator is in the building, finds it and uses the device to revive the man.
Community Development program planner Pete Pensa, 28, said he took the course because he doesn't want to feel helpless if someone inside the building suffers cardiac arrest.
As a teenager, Pensa remembers strolling through a mall with his friends when one of them had a seizure. Pensa knew what to do, but the looks of helplessness on the faces of some people inside the mall still haunt him.
"You never know when you might need it," he said.