Community Health and Fitness - Cardiac Arrest and Defibrillators, PADs, AECs, CFR Schemes, etc

I am no expert but this exploratory post comes after reading about a recovery from cardiac arrest Although they may not mean very much to you at present, you may have seen and pondered the terms:

• "defibrillator" - device to resuscitate,
• "PAD" (Public Access Defibrillator) - located outside for ease of access,
• "AED" (Automated External Defibrillator) - descriptive of device,
• "CFR" (Community First Responder) - volunteer team to be first at local incident,
• "CPR" (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation  - form of manual resuscitation.

Cardiac arrest is the reason for this post and the terms above are all to do with recovery, saving life or safeguarding quality of life, ie  after an individual has suffered cardiac arrest - briefly and basically, his or her heart has stopped. However, for instance, the use of a defibrillator or CPR may restore the individual's heart function. Without the PAD or handy mobile AED, the presence of someone versed in CPR might be needed.

Without a  public access defibrillator (PAD) in your village or town an incident involving cardiac arrest may be more serious than need be. If the settlement is too remote to be reached in time by the local ambulance service's personnel, treatment may be later rather than sooner.  

Schemes to have a PAD can be supported by volunteers, and property owners willing to have a PAD on the outside of their property. Local people in say, a remote village or valley might set up  PAD(s) by the following:

• raise funds;
• find property owners;
• procure the equipment:
• fix the defibrillator to the building;
• train volunteers to maintain the PADs in their boxes (but I have the impression that untrained residents could use the devices likely to be used in such a scheme);
• promote the whereabouts of the local PADs to other residents, officials and others;
• deal with insurance scheme.

I would love to see every village and town in the Sevenoaks District with at least one PAD, etc by the end of March 2022 - if necessary on a volunteer basis. Of course, there are official programmes for PADs and Community First Responder schemes but voluntary effort might be needed to get them in place more quickly than might be possible otherwise.

Also, one might expect supermarkets, clinics and surgeries, leisure centres and other high "footfall" locations to want a PAD or inhouse AED. I understand that more major airport has 60 defibrillators and the concomitant  trained staff. In the USA at least one school administration requires them in all schools and at least one board of dental  services requires one in every dental surgery together with trained staff, ie those who are involved in treating patients,