AED`s in TRANSPORT

It is estimated that at least 80% of all Sudden Cardiac Arrests (SCA) occur outside the hospital environment, and of those the survival rate is currently less than 5% due to the lack of rapid access to an Automated External Defibrillator (AED).

Every day hundreds of thousands of people use both private and public transport in their everyday lives and with at least 2000 people dying of SCA per week in the UK alone, many of these will be occurring during those journeys.

In 1997, in the USA, American Airlines became the first airline to equip all its aircraft fleet with AED's and train all 18,000 of its personnel in their use. Since then, they have achieved an impressive 63% survival rate.

Laws encouraging or mandating the placement of AEDs in public transportation areas are currently being passed across Europe. 65 AED's are currently being deployed at Madrid's Barajas airport, which serves 50 million travelers a year. The Madrid deployment also involves the AED/CPR training of up to 700 staff.

Although there are some transport networks in the U.K. providing on site AED's, there are not nearly enough. When SCA strikes, there is only a 4-6 minute window of opportunity for successful resuscitation using an AED as part of the chain of survival. Beyond that time chance of survival decreases dramatically to less than 5% after 10 minutes and virtually zero after that.

In order to achieve optimal survival rates, AED's should be available on every plane/train/bus/boat and taxi and placed within airports/ stations /ports spaced at distances ensuring that from point of attack, response time with the AED is less than 5 minutes.

At The Defib Centre, we offer advice on all aspects of an AED program from how many to best placement and training.

For further details of our packages for transport, please email: transport@thedefibcentre.co.uk or call us on 0800 634 9745.