Feature Stories

“He’s gurgling, he’s gurgling,” George Arciba called out, referring to the limp six-year-old lying below him on the concrete floor of Casa Linda Elementary School’s physical education class.

Jeanie Parker, the school’s nurse was running in with a physical education teacher, Jeannie Cantu, right behind her. Scared kindergartners watched from the side.

Cantu came in with a Cardiac Science G3 Plus Auto AED, or Automated External Defibrillator, swinging from her arm.

“CPR training tells you that if a person is gurgling to wait, but he was turning blue,” said Parker later.

Fortunately, she said, the laptop-sized AED took the guess work out of the situation. Once the pads were on little Emiliano’s chest the machine instructed the nurse to administer a shock.

With one jolt he was revived, paramedics arrived soon after and the boy was on his way to the hospital with a beating heart.

Parker still gets choked up recounting the afternoon.

“It’s a very emotional experience, being able to save the life of someone so young,” explained Parker.

What had started out as a promising morning for Dalyla Vela, looking forward to the upcoming Mother’s Day, had taken a dramatic turn as she got the call telling her what had happened to her son.

“I was out of my mind,” said Vela, remembering the thoughts running through her head. She jumped into her truck and arrived on the scene as the ambulance arrived, staying with her son as he was transported to the hospital, was treated and eventually recovered.

“What I realized was if the school hadn’t had the defibrillator, my son wouldn’t be here, if that machine wasn’t there, I would have lost him,” said Vela.

“What you saw at Casa Linda Elementary was a team of teachers and staff who took the time to get properly trained, who were ready to spring into action and did everything right,” said Eddie Martin, Marketing Manager for Public Access Defibrillation, Cardiac Science Corp. “Every second matters during sudden cardiac arrest, as Corpus Christi Schools demonstrated. By making every tick of the clock count in favor of Emiliano’s life they showed exactly how seriously they take providing a safe environment for the community’s youngsters.”

“Having an AED is as important as having a fire extinguisher,” said Debbie Gilchrist, Corpus Christi Schools’ Coordinator of Student Health Services. “Actually, if I had to choose between the two, I would probably pick the AED.”

“An AED and dedicated personnel saved a child’s life, that’s the bottom line,” Gilchrist said.

Sudden cardiac arrest strikes about 7,000 children every year. They are among the more than 365,000 people hit annually in North America.

“Everybody can have a cardiac arrest, no matter if you are two years old or 60 years old,” said Vela. “We need AEDs in the libraries and in stores, everywhere.”

Survival is linked directly to how quickly the first AED shock is delivered to a victim. According to the American Heart Association and the European Resuscitation Council, defibrillation within three minutes of sudden cardiac arrest lifts the chance of survival to 70 percent. Studies validate that when a shock is delivered within one minute, survival rates can increase seventeen fold from 5 percent to levels as high as 86 percent[1] in some cases.

·    The average call-to-shock time for a typical community is 9 minutes[2] without AEDs.

·    Median response time is 6.6 minutes for emergency medical services in mid-sized urban communities[3].

The Corpus Christi school system deployed 62 AEDs across its schools before the fateful day at Casa Linda Elementary School.

“My budget did not support it,” said Gilchrist of the deployment. “We had to find the funds elsewhere to do this.”

Gilchrist agrees that nearly every school must work within tight budgets and competing demands for important services and infrastructure. But she says AEDs and lifesaving training are a top priority and should be obtained through whatever means are possible.

“If you have to, you’ve got to look into the community, find a sponsor or raise funds,” said Gilchrist. “It’s not just the children. You have visitors coming onto your campuses during the day as well. This is extremely important.  You can’t put a price on a life.”

To be most effective, a comprehensive deployment of AEDs should be based on superior machines that provide reliability, ease of use and assurance. A strong training and management program should also be developed and executed together with your Cardiac Science representative.

Reliability:

·    The device is Rescue Ready^®, meaning it self-tests the battery, hardware, software, and defibrillation pads daily to ensure it works when you need it.

Ease of Use:

·    The RescueCoach™ voice prompts and metronome guide you through a very stressful rescue situation.

·    The device knows when to (and when not to) deliver the shock.

·    The text screen lends extra help in noisy and chaotic environments.

Assurance:

·    Each AED is under warranty for seven years – one of the longest in the industry.

·    We also provide a four-year, full operational guarantee on the Intellisense^® lithium battery used on G3 Plus defibrillators.