Hi All,

There's a lot of excellent coverage in the media currently about how to use a defibrillator and also plans to list where they are located nationwide.

I, for one have watched this a couple of times - just in case:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=YbjcCjSNvUY

There's one in the old telephone box close to the Marton Arms pub, Thornton in Lonsdale (at bottom of road up to Kingsdale).  Hope none of us ever need to use it 

Theres one in the Phone box opposite the Castle Pub in Castleton. https://goo.gl/maps/rinoNx1ciaz

There's one in the old telephone box on Priddy Green too.

Pegasus said:

There's a lot of excellent coverage in the media currently about how to use a defribulator

Click to expand...

But, clearly, very little on how to spell it...

Hi Pegasus, can we spell it right please? With medicine spelling is important as there are some unpleasant medical procedures vaguely associated with how you have spelled it. The word is 'defibrillator'.  Our practice first acquired one back in the early 90's after three patients dropped dead in front of me when I had been called out in the middle of night to rural areas to people with chest pain. Not a pleasant experience doing CPR with no realistic prospect of success on a 30 minute wait for an ambulance. The early ones had poor batteries and had to be kept on continuous charge. The new 'Noel Coward' ones do everything. I called them Noel Cowards after the RP voice you get directing proceedings.

They will only work if the victim heart is in a state known as ventricular fibrillation where the muscle is beating in a rapid and uncoordinated fashion. It is less successful if the heart has just stopped.  It is not a substitue for CPR.

Great, and important post Mrodoc 

When I was younger, I met the man who invented the portable defibrillator - Prof. Pantridge. He was an acquaintance of my father's, and quite the character!

This website has a map of where you can find defibrillators: www.heartsafe.org.uk/AED-Locations though it doesn't seem to list the ones by the Marton Arms or in Castleton. It does say you can "register your AED" but I'm not sure if you have to actually be the owner to register? Worth a shot though if someone local wanted to take a look

Various local Ambulance Services have an app that shows you where your nearest defibrillator is and how to use it.

Here's the one for Yorkshire https://www.yas.nhs.uk/news/campaigns-and-events/2018-campaigns-and-events/save-a-life-app/

Search for "Save A Life" "app" <your area>

The defib clearly explains what you need to do & won't do anything if it detects a heartbeat, so can be used by anyone. The training is mainly to encourage people to try to save a life...

Mike

Online training will, I'm sure, overcome inaction with people actually getting the nearest defib and trying to use it/attempting CPR.

However a practical session also shows how to use it effectively e.g. if more than one person is available then one should get the defib and one start CPR. That the pads must be placed on a naked bare chest (scissors for clothing/jewellery and razor/wax strips for the hirsuite) and both in the correct positions. Research shows that the lower "side left" pad is most likely to be poorly placed (not being far enough on the side of the lower ribs). While there will be a picture on each pad an automated voice saying somethng like "Apply pads to patients bare chest" doesn't truly explain what needs to be done.

Remember too that if the AED advises no shock then CPR is what you should do - the AED will recheck the casulaties heart rhythm after a further 2 minutes and again advise on a shock or not. In rural areas this will likely happen many times before the paramedics arrive.

As Mikem says modern AEDs make all the decisions for you, they'll decide if a shock is appropriate or not (you don't need to know what VF, VT, PEA or Asystole mean). Paramedics have manual defibs which output a heart trace and they will make a shock or no shock decision based on this.