Life-saving equipment donated to arena
Published Thursday August 21st, 2008
It's a gift that just might save a life.
Willie O'Ree Place has become the first location in the province to benefit from the donation of an automated external heart defibrillator. Defibrillators are devices that can deliver a life-saving shock to someone suffering cardiac arrest.
The Heart and Stroke Foundation of New Brunswick and New Brunswick EMS's Public Access Defibrillation program are working to distribute automated external defibrillators throughout the province.
The defibrillator was purchased through a donation by the Bruce Hadley Tribute Fund. Const. Hadley, 32, died from a heart attack while jogging in Bathurst last summer. His friends, relatives and colleagues have organized a fundraiser run this weekend to raise money for the fund.
More than 270 runners will take part in the relay. Some will leave at 8 a.m. Saturday from J-Division headquarters, where Hadley worked as a dispatcher before becoming a Mountie, while others will run from Madawaska County, where Hadley was first posted after becoming an officer.
Bruce Hadley's uncle, Sgt. Gary Hadley, said the fundraiser is just the kind of thing his nephew would want to support.
"He would want to run and be part of it," he said.
Bruce Hadley was just one of the 1,200 New Brunswickers who died of sudden cardiac arrest each year.
Intervention with a heart defibrillator like the one donated to Willie O'Ree Place can make all the difference. Without access to a defibrillator, the survival rate is five per cent. Using a defibrillator in the early minutes increases the percentage to 50 per cent.
Rocco Rossi, CEO of the Heart and Stroke Foundation in Ontario, has seen lives saved thanks to defibrillators in public places.
He met a Sturgeon Falls, Ont., man who is still alive thanks to one.
"When you look into the eyes of two kids who still have a father and a wife who still has a husband for the sake of a $5,000 machine, there's no better feeling."
Six staff members at every facility will be trained to use the device by New Brunswick EMS.
Rossi said the important thing is for people not to freeze when there is an emergency and know that there is a simple-to-use machine available to them.
Mary-Lou Price is the Public Access Defibrillator program co-ordinator in south-west New Brunswick for New Brunswick EMS. She said the machines in public facilities are made to be easy to use.
Once turned on, the machine provides audio instructions to the user, explaining how to apply the paddles to the victim's body. It then tells the user what to do next, whether to administer a shock or whether to perform CPR. And if it does call for CPR, it tells the user how to perform it and plays a tempo to be matched. The machine also assesses whether CPR is being properly administered.
The response centre for Ambulance New Brunswick also has instructions for the defibrillators at public locations and will walk users through over the phone if necessary.
Ambulance NB community relations officer Isabelle Landry said users who are trying to save someone don't fall under any liability for use of the machine.
"These machines are designed in such a way that it will not discharge unless the heart is in one of two possible lethal arrhythmias, neither of which can be duplicated by a healthy person or heart. So there is no risk for liability for the placement or use of these machines," she said.
The only liabilities involve manufacturers, she said.
David Saad, program manager for the YMCA which operates a fitness centre at Willie O'Ree Place, welcomed the gift.
"I hope we never have to use it, but it's good to know we have one on-site and that it's easy to use."
"It's great...it just adds to that sense of security."
The YMCA on the south side of the river already has a defibrillator of its own, he said.
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