Pikes Peak Courier reports Teller and El Paso Counties in Colorado will join PulsePoint to make citizen CPR and AEDs more readily accessible.

https://gazette.com/pikespeakcourie...646b41e-8515-11ec-8c97-4ba9f70b1847.html

A combination of technology and foresight, the registry for automatic external defibrillators is designed to save the lives of people suffering sudden cardiac arrest.

It’s the leading cause of death in the United States. In Teller and El Paso counties, 1,096 people died of sudden cardiac arrest in 2021.

The AED registry is intended to be an intervention, along with CPR, for people experiencing the condition in Teller County.

Kim Schallenberger, executive director of Plains to Peaks RETAC, collaborated with others to develop the registry in Teller County.

While all emergency services and fire districts have the defibrillators on hand, they weren’t part of a registry. To develop the program, Schcallenberger worked with medical directors, Jeremy DeWall, M.D., Timothy Hurtado, D.O.., and El Paso-Teller 9-1-1 Authority.

“This system allows the dispatchers to directly tell people calling where the closest AED is in the event of a cardiac arrest,” DeWall said.

Teller County dispatchers, who are part of the 911 Authority, are key to the program’s success in saving lives. “It isn’t the ambulance, because the ambulance is not going to get there quick enough,” Schallenberger said. “You need to have that CPR and AED within four to six minutes (of sudden cardiac arrest).”

Whether in the city of Colorado Springs or a remote rural area in Teller County, the ambulance response times are often longer than 10 minutes. “It’s important that the bystander knows where the equipment is,” Schallenberger said. “Dispatchers up here and in Colorado Springs are spectacular because they have the best emergency medical dispatch training.”

To be effective, however, the person experiencing sudden cardiac arrest must be with or near another person at the time.

“Anybody can buy one and have it in their home,” Schallenberger said. “I have one, but it won’t do me any good if my wife isn’t home. And it won’t help anyone else if they don’t know I have one.”

The registry initiative is new for Teller County and doubles as an alert for the residents. “We need the public and businesses to register their AEDs,” Schallenberger said.

Schallenberger credits Stein Bronsky, M.D., medical director for the El Paso-Teller 9-1-1 Authority, for developing the registry through the Pulse Point smart application.

To register, cellphone users can hover the phone over the QR Code pictured. More information is available by calling El Paso-Teller 9-1-1 Authority at 719-785-1900.

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