EDWARDS - A lot of technology is packed into an automated external defibrillator. But using one correctly takes training.

That's why a supply of nearly three dozen defibrillators is being doled out slowly. As people who work in schools, libraries and other public buildings are trained to use the life-saving devices, their buildings get one or more of the machines.

"Used properly, they're terrific. Used improperly, they can be a big problem. They really need to be in the hands of people who know how to use them," said Frank D'Alessio, who works with the Vail Police Department's volunteer group as well as the Citizens Police Academy.

So far, several police departments in Eagle County have defibrillators in their offices.

Training those users is fairly easy, because police officers are already trained in CPR and other lifesaving techniques.

And knowing CPR is critical, because most people who suffer sudden cardiac arrest don't need a defibrillator's electric shock.

That was one of the scary things Mary Ann Best learned when she took defibrillator training a few weeks ago.

"It's just a tool," Best said of the defibrillators. "In most cases, you have to do manual CPR."

But the defibrillators are still valuable, Best said. Hooking up the defibrillator's electrodes to someone who has collapsed will tell whoever is running the machine what's going on inside that person's chest. Most of the time, the machine will tell the operator that CPR is needed to revive the patient. And, as the operator works away, the defibrillator can determine how long to keep going with CPR.

"That's a big thing, knowing what it can and can't do," Best said.

And the more people who know that, the better.

That's why the people at both of the valley's ambulance districts are doing more than just training defibrillator operators.

At the valley's high schools, paramedics and other emergency responders are training people who can then train others.

The goal is to have every graduating senior from Eagle County trained in CPR and defibrillator use, said Lyn Morgan of the Eagle County Health Service District, the ambulance district for the eastern half of the valley.

To help speed the training, each of the valley's five high schools has received a training dummy, a training model defibrillator, and other equipment that will be kept at those schools.

The result could be a few hundred people a year trained in life-saving techniques. And the more people trained, the better.

Penny Harp knows second-hand how valuable CPR training can be off the job. Harp's son is a firefighter in Indianapolis. A few years ago, he used a defibrillator at that city's airport to save a man's life.

"That convinced me to take the training as soon as it was offered," said Harp, who works in the reception area at Vail Town Hall.

The Vail library will be the next public building to get a defibrillator. The library will close Tuesday, April 26 so the entire staff can be trained in one day.

"It's nice to have the (Vail) fire department two minutes away," said library director Susan Boyd. "But it will be good to have this at the library."

==============

Life-saving equipment



• A group of 25 local governments and special districts last year landed a grant from the Hillsdale Fund of North Carolina to buy 36 automated external defibrillators.

• The units can help save some of the 220,000 Americans who die every year from sudden cardiac arrest

• Only 5 percent of sudden cardiac arrest victims survive.

• The year after automated external defibrillators were placed throughout Chicago O'Hare Airport, 27 percent of sudden cardiac arrest victims there survived.

========================

Staff Writer Scott N. Miller can be reached at 949-0555, ext. 613, or smiller@vaildaily.com.



Vail Daily, Vail Colorado