Hancock County, IN gets AEDs for patrol cars and county buildings - click for article

HANCOCK COUNTY — The jolt coming out of the new automated external defibrillator is going to be “a very violent act,” the trainer told county workers at the courthouse annex.

That’s where the group gathered to see a demonstration on how to use the 74 new AEDs, which were recently delivered to county buildings and installed in all sheriff’s department vehicles.

Sheriff Brad Burkhart and officials from Cintas, the company from which the county has leased the equipment, spent a few days installing the units and discussing their usage.

“To have these installed in every one of our county buildings is very important for the safety of the public and the county staff,” Burkhart said.

The county is renting the state-of-the-art Zoll AED 3 units from Cintas; the equipment recently went on the market and would have cost around $1,895 a unit had the county bought them outright.

Instead, the county is paying $57,720 annually for the units for the next five years. Cost includes the AED device, a prescription for medical advice, inspections, service, maintenance and record-keeping.

County officials determined it was time to get new AEDs after realizing replacement parts for their older equipment, such as batteries and pads, were increasingly harder to obtain.

“These new ones are actually the first ones of their kind being used in the country,” Burkhart said. “They’re the best you can get.”

Sheriff’s deputies are often first on the scene at many emergencies around the county, and officials thought the cost was a good investment.

The units have a video screen and an audio system that basically tells a person using the unit what to do each step of the way.

“It also has pediatric integration,” said Kanav Kashyap, a representative of Cintas who conducted training for employees last week. “You can push a button and turn the unit to a pediatric mode to give less shock.”

During the short tutorials, Kashyap explained the difference between cardiac arrest and a heart attack and told county employees how important it is to act during those first few seconds a person is in distress. It’s vital, he said, to quickly employ an AED while someone else calls for help.

“These screens will also show you how to do everything, even the CPR, step-by-step,” Kashyap said.

Kashyap and Burkhart, who has preformed CPR many times during his 30 years of community service, explained to county workers that it is not easy to watch someone get shocked with an AED unit or to preform CPR. That’s important to know that going in.

“You’re pushing down, cracking a rib,” Kashyap said. “The scene is not very enticing.”

The new units will actually tell the operator how quickly to do CPR, which no longer includes breathing into a victim’s mouth.

Probably the best thing about the unit, officials said, is it can determine, once the pads are connected to a person, if the heart needs a shock or not.

“The idea is for the people here to bridge the gap until the specialists arrive,” Kashyap said.

After watching the demonstration, county workers were said they thought they could operate the unit if the need arises.

“It looks much easier than anything I’ve been trained on before,” said Nicole Parcell, deputy county recorder.

The officials also recommended people in all walks of life to take a course or brush up on their CPR and emergency skills.


What the AED can do:

The ZOLL AED 3 is the newest of its kind on the market.

Features a color touchscreen LCD display, Real CPR help, is WiFi-enabled for program management, has a defibrillator dashboard, cloud connection, RescueNet case review, clinical event case push, and UTC synchronization.

The ZOLL AED 3 has features designed to fit the responder. The AED 3 has been designed for the lay rescue responder featuring the CPR Uni-Padz III electrodes to be used on either adult or child rescues.

The ZOLL AED 3 also features Enhanced Real CPR Help. The CPR Dashboard displays the actual depth and rate of the compression numerically, along with elapsed time, CPR cycle count, shocks delivered, and ECG.

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