The free application, PulsePoint AED, allows registration of publicly available AEDs, which may be located on a map in the app for quick access during a cardiac emergency.
"We're trying to encourage local businesses, schools, churches and other places that have them available to register them," said Allen Clark, the Crawford County Emergency Management Agency coordinator. The agency is part of the Crawford County Department of Public Safety.
So far, 47 AEDs in the county have been registered, according to Clark.
"Having an accurate AED registry within our community can greatly improve the odds that a nearby device will be accessible during a cardiac arrest event and can be used to help save a life," he said.
The local registry is vetted and maintained by the Department of Public Safety.
The registry also can be linked into the Crawford County 911 dispatch center so call takers have access to AED locations during emergency call taking, Clark said.
Community members may download the free application to locate and report public AEDs or use the easy-to-remember web page, aed.new, to add AEDs to the registry.
Early application of CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) — an emergency lifesaving procedure performed when the heart stops beating — and rapid defibrillation from an AED are proven methods in improving a person's chance of surviving sudden cardiac arrest, Clark said.
A study, published in the American Heart Association's journal, Circulation, found 66 percent of cardiac arrest victims who received a shock from an AED performed a bystander before emergency help arrived survived to hospital discharge.
The study also found that without bystander use of a publicly available AED waiting instead for emergency responders to arrive, 70 percent of cardiac arrest patients died or survived with impaired brain function.
"With PulsePoint AED, we hope to create greater awareness throughout our county around the important role AEDs play in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival," Clark said.
In 2023, Crawford County's ambulance services responded to a total of 247 cardiac arrest events, which would benefit from quick access to an AED, he noted.
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