By Paul Krueger, Documenters contributor
Every public park in National City could have its own life-saving device for heart attack victims.
If the City Council approves a recommendation by an advisory committee, National City would be the first city in the county to install Automated External Heart Defibrillators in its parks, according to National City Fire Department Battalion Chief and paramedic Scott Robinson.
The city’s Parks, Recreation and Senior Citizen Advisory Committee endorsed the proposal during a meeting last month.
“It’s a very simple device that is extremely easy to use,” said Jessica Robinson, a clinical educator and data analyst for the fire department.
Even children can use the device to save the life of a heart attack victim, she said.
AEDs are compact, portable devices designed to provide immediate and potentially life-saving treatment while the patient waits for paramedics. The device includes an audio recording in English or Spanish that tells the user how to apply the defibrillator. AEDs are already placed in the city’s libraries, fire stations and at City Hall, but they’re not accessible 24/7, as they would be in city parks.
Every year, Americans suffer approximately 450,000 cases of cardiac arrest outside a hospital setting, Battalion Chief Robinson told the committee. About 75,000 of those heart attacks happen in parks and other public places, he said. Placing AEDs in parks will increase survival rates because bystanders can take immediate action while waiting for paramedics.
Jessica Robinson said portable AEDs could be a game-changer for heart attack patients in her city. That’s because studies show that in low-income, primarily Hispanic communities, heart attack victims are “much less likely to receive CPR and assistance from community bystanders.”
The devices cost about $1,500 each, which committee member Joanne McGhee said is “very, very minimal.” McGhee and other committee members expressed support for the Fire Department’s proposal, which included a request for funding to apply for grants that would pay for the AEDs.
This brief came from reporting by Jose Acevedo Amador, a San Diego Documenter, at a National City Parks, Recreation, and Senior Citizen Advisory Committee last month. The Documenters program trains and pays community members to document what happens at public meetings. It’s run by inewsource, a nonpartisan nonprofit newsroom dedicated to investigative and accountability journalism. Read more about the program here.
Type of Content
Meeting Brief: An account of a public government proceeding, written and edited by the San Diego Documenters.
