Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

GPD gets portable defibrillators

When a person has heart trauma, it is not always fatal. But time is a very crucial factor.

Gurdon City Marshal Don Childres said many times police officers are on the scene of heart patient situations before an ambulance can arrive. It had been a dream of the marshal's for some time to be able to do something more to save lives.

"Last summer, we started applying for a grant from the Cabe Foundation for two Automated External Defibrillators. It was a $5,000 grant and it came through," Childres said. "The AEDs are for people whose hearts have stopped. It shocks them to start the beating again, if they need it. The nice thing about these machines is that it won't deliver the shock if they don't need the jump start."

Childres said the AEDs came in about a week before Christmas. All of his officers will attend a training session to be certified to use them on Wednesday, Dec. 29 through personnel at the Baptist hospital in Arkadelphia.

"The ambulance now has these too, so if they are on the scene, we don't have to use ours, but the seconds are so crucial. If we get there first, we will put on the patches and hook up," Childres said.

The marshal said he spent 13 years working on ambulances in this area before the defibrillators were available.

"There sure were times we could have used one," he said. "The sole use of these machines is to start a heart. We are all certified in CPR at the police department, but we will be getting recertified on that too."

Childres said the AED has two pads, one going near the heart and one down on the side  near the stomach area. He said the machine is very self-explanatory.

"If it saves one person's life, it would be worth it," he said.

The AEDs will be going in the two city police cars for use right after the officers are certified.

"We realize this can not help every heart victim, but it can give some a much better chance," Childres said. "I believe there are at least a dozen times in a year when we could use one of these defibrillators. It can only help when it comes to patient survival."