Published: October 17, 2009 08:28 pm      

Defibrillators

Grant will make more available to the county

Thanks to a federal grant, at least 33 automated external defibrillators — and maybe as many as 50 — will be located in Allegany County public schools and elsewhere around the county.

It’s likely that at least some of them eventually will save lives.

According to the American Heart Association, about 295,000 cardiac arrests are treated each year, outside of hospitals, by emergency medical services personnel. They are not necessarily heart attacks.

Sudden cardiac arrest is the abrupt loss of heart function in people who may or may not have diagnosed heart disease, sometimes in those who appear to be healthy.

Death can occur instantly or shortly after symptoms appear and is responsible for half of all heart disease deaths.

Relatively few people are trained to use such devices, but the new AEDs will provide both written and voice instructions for those who may have to use them to save a life.

Several locations in the county already have AEDs, including the County Office Complex, the Great Allegheny Passage Trail and at Allegany College of Maryland and Frostburg State University. A state law passed three years ago required Maryland’s school systems to develop and implement an AED program.

The grant will provide more AEDs for schools, and other units will go to local fire departments, district and circuit courts, the Cumberland YMCA, the health department’s Willowbrook Road facility, the Country Club Mall in LaVale and the Allegany County, Westernport, Frostburg and Lonaconing police departments. Cumberland Police and the sheriff’s office also may get them in the price allows.

It also will provide equipment and training for about 950 county residents.