Four more Kamloops sites get defibrillators

NEWS/ HEALTH — Four Kamloops venues will be safer places to be thanks to having automated external defibrillators on site.

During the past few weeks, AEDs have been placed at the Kamloops Airport, Singh Street Soccer Bowl, Tournament Capital Ranch and Sun Peaks sports field. They were donated by the Heart and Stroke Foundation as part of the Public Access to Defibrillation program.

Provided through funding from the B.C. government and the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the program supports the installation of up to 750 AEDs in public venues such as community centres, arenas, recreation centres, playing fields and parks, throughout B.C. by 2017.

More than 2,000 B.C. residents experience a sudden cardiac arrest each year. The current survival rate for an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is only about five per cent. When CPR is used with defibrillation, or an electrical shock to the heart, the survival rate jumps up to 75 per cent.

The AED reads the heart rhythm and only delivers a shock if needed.

The Public Access to Defibrillation program was officially launched in February 2013, with $1 million from both the B.C. Ministry of Health and the Heart and Stroke Foundation to install 450 AEDs provincewide.

Additional funding from both parties will bring the total support for the program up to $4 million, and 300 more AEDs by the end of 2017. To date, more than 185 AEDs have been placed in more than 80 communities.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation has partnered with the B.C. Ambulance Service to implement the PAD program, with paramedics providing on-site orientation and ongoing program oversight for each AED installation. Paramedics train staff and volunteers at each location to learn the chain of survival – Call 9-1-1, Do CPR and Use an AED.

“The goal of our PAD program orientation sessions is to empower bystanders to feel confident performing CPR and using an AED during a medical emergency,” said Paul Swain, B.C. Ambulance Service’s director of Interior Region.

Shelley Parker, PAD program manager for the Heart and Stroke Foundation, said AEDs are being placed where there’s the greatest chance they’ll save a life.