Why every work and public place needs a defibrillator
If more bystanders performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) quickly and used defibrillators where available, thousands more people could survive cardiac arrests each year. In its new 2015 guidelines, the Resuscitation Council says that as well as calling the emergency services straight away, people could improve a victim’s chances of survival if they gave CPR immediately on recognising the signs of a cardiac arrest. Defibrillators are portable electronic devices that automatically diagnose and treat life threatening cardiac arrhythmias through the application of electrical therapy, allowing the heart to re-establish an effective rhythm. The use of a defibrillator within three to five minutes of collapse can make survival rates as high as 50 to 70%. Fewer than 2% of victims in the UK have a defibrillator deployed before an ambulance arrives and of the 60,000 cases of suspected cardiac arrest each year, less than half of these have resuscitation attempted by ambulan...