Dr. Mark Estes, of Tufts Medical Center and the American Heart Association, discussed the importance of Automatic External Defibrillators (AED’s) being available in public places in FOX25 investigative news story that aired this week.
FOX25 Investigates visited more than 20 popular locations around Boston, including shopping malls, museums, and other public buildings, looking for AED’s. While 90 percent of those locations reported having at least one AED on site, FOX25’s crew was able to easily find the devices at less than half of those locations.
Dr. Mark Estes of Tufts Medical Center and the American Heart Association, believes AEDs should be in all public locations.
“They should be in all public locations, parking garages, hallways, airports, schools, so that you can’t walk into that location without noticing it,” said Estes. “(An AED) doesn’t do any good in a closet in a security office.”
Estes is among the leading voices in New England who are pushing for more public access to defibrillation. Doctors say someone who experiences sudden cardiac arrest has less than a ten minute window to survive.
“For every minute that you delay definitive treatment with the defibrillator shock, survival goes down by ten percent,” said Estes.
Click here to watch the report.