About 250,000 people die each year from sudden cardiac arrest. That’s about 700 per day. (American Heart Assoc.)
Cardiac arrest usually results from some underlying form of heart disease. Most cardiac arrests are due to abnormal heart rhythms called arrhythmias. Ventricular fibrillation (VF) is the most common arrhythmia that causes cardiac arrest. When sudden cardiac arrest occurs, the heart’s pumping action stops abruptly, the victim loses consciousness, has no pulse and stops breathing normally. Death follows within minutes without defibrillation.
Defibrillation is the only known therapy for VF. This technique of giving an electrical shock can restore the heart’s normal rhythm if it is done within minutes of the arrest. For every minute that passes without defibrillation, a victim’s chance of survival decreases by 7-10 percent. After as little as 10 minutes, very few resuscitation attempts are successful.
Case in point- In Nov. 2004 Keene Fire successfully recusitated a 45 year old man in cardiac arrest, and a 63 year old man, because we were able to reach them quickly! And several others since then.
The Keene Fire Department has 10 Defibrilators on it's Apparatus!
AHA- "Time equals heart muscle" The longer the wait for treatment of Heart Attack the more heart muscle dies.
ASA- "Time equals brain" The longer you wait in treatment of a stroke the more brain dies.
STROKE= A heart attack for your brain
An ischemic stroke is ANY damage to the brain caused by lack of blood flow in brain blood vessels or in major arteries leading to the brain. This usually results in temporary or permanent loss of one or more normal functions of the body. A hemorrhagic stroke is due to bleeding into the brain causing damage.
Time is critical when someone suffers a stroke. Today, only about 5 percent of stroke patients arrive at the hospital in time to be treated with a clot-busting drug that can help reduce permanent brain damage and long-term disability.
Stroke is America’s No. 3 killer and a leading cause of serious, long-term disability. Yet only 1 percent of Americans worry about this health condition, according to an American Stroke Association survey conducted earlier this year. The American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association, estimates that in the United States someone has a stroke every 53 seconds, and someone dies of one every 3.1 minutes. Stroke accounted for about one of every 14.3 deaths in the United States in 1999.
CONTACT YOUR CITY COUNCILOR!!!!!!!!!!http://www.ci.keene.nh.us/council/index.htm