Tri-Community South EMS received the Achieving Excellence in Defibrillation (AED) Response Award for Best Small Community AED program on Friday, October 24, 2003 at the National Center for Early Defibrillation's Congress of Champions and Survivor Summit in Washington D.C. Tri-Community South was selected as having the best AED program out of nearly 50 other programs from across the United States.
The Tri-Community South EMS Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) program actually began a little over ten years ago as part of a research project and has grown significantly to the present time where there are over 100 AEDs deployed throughout the Bethel Park, South Park and Upper St. Clair service area. This program is an integral part of the systems mission, in part, to reduce death and disability in the communities it serves.
The leading cause of death in the United States for people over the age of 40 is cardiovascular disease, clearly a public health care crisis. Every hour in the United States 42 people suffer from sudden cardiac arrest. This occurs often without any warning signs or symptoms and can happen anywhere in the community. Victims experience a sudden life threatening disorganized heart rhythm known as ventricular fibrillation (V-Fib) that renders them unconscious and pulseless. It has been proven that the only way to reverse this fatal heart rhythm (V-Fib) is to deliver an electrical counter shock with a defibrillator.
For the electrical counter shock, or defibrillation, to be effective it must be delivered within a matter of minutes. In fact if defibrillation can be accomplished with the first minute of sudden cardiac arrest, victims have a 90% chance of survival. For each minute that passes, the chance of reversing V-Fib dimishes by 10%.
The concept of the Chain of Survival is taught during every educational program conducted because it is the only known way of increasing survival in the community. The links in the chain are First; Early Access. Someone must first recognize the medical emergency whether it is the victim, a family member, co worker or bystander. In the case of sudden cardiac arrest, someone must recognize that condition and be able to take appropriate action and access or activate the Emergency Medical Services System.
The second link in the Chain of Survival is Early CPR. Every individual should know life saving first aid. This includes being able to recognize a life threatening emergency and perform Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). Cpr should be started immediately upon recognition of sudden cardiac arrest.
Early Defibrillation is the third link. The availability of AEDs and legislation allowing the development of public access AED programs is having the strongest impact on reducing the number of deaths from sudden cardiac arrest each year. AEDs are relatively inexpensive, extremely simple to operate and are deployed in many areas in the community.
The fourth and final link in the chain of survival is Early Advance Cardiac Life Support. Tri-Community South EMS is entering its 26th year of delivering prehospital emergency care to the community.
Citizens can find AEDs locally, hanging on the wall for public access use in their community centers, schools, municipal buildings, libraries, office buildings churches and fire departments. All local Police department patrol vehicles have AEDs as they are often the first responder on the scene of any emergency. Our local police departments have had AEDs for more than ten years and have paved the way as models for many other law enforcement AED programs.
The Achieving Excellence in Defibrillation Response Award is one that the entire community should be proud of. It is only with community support that the staff at Tri-Community South are able to foster the development of public access AEDs and reduce death and disability from sudden cardiac arrest.
If you or your organization want to learn more about life-saving first aid, AEDs or to schedule CPR and AED training, please call the Tri-Community South EMS office at 412-831-3710.