Irish Pharmacy Staff Helps Save Life With ZOLL AED Plus

Main Category: Cardiovascular / Cardiology
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 15 Jul 2010 - 4:00 PDT

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ZOLL Medical Corporation (NasdaqGS: ZOLL), a manufacturer of resuscitation devices and related software solutions, announced that the quick-acting staff of a pharmacy in Limerick, Ireland recently saved a man's life with an AED Plus® following a car accident. Fortunately for the patient, employees at DocMorris Pharmacy on William Street in Limerick had just received life-saving training on the AED a few days earlier.

Pharmacy manager Linda O'Brien said they were trained how to use the defibrillator on Tuesday and the accident happened right after lunch on Friday. "We were lucky the accident didn't occur a week earlier when we were not equipped with an AED."

It is believed the middle-aged man went into sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) while driving up the street and crashed his vehicle into an unmarked Garda (Irish police) car. Passersby alerted the pharmacy staff who rushed to the scene and retrieved their portable defibrillator as soon as they saw the victim's condition. Pharmacist Fatima Sadek used the AED Plus to help with CPR feedback and to deliver a shock until paramedics arrived. The man is expected to make a full recovery in a nearby hospital.

"We never thought we would have to use the AED so soon. The AED Plus, with its CPR feedback, guided us through every step of the way," said O'Brien. "I never realized how important AEDs were until the incident. Every business should have one."

According to Lynn Doyle, marketing manager for the Unicare Pharmacy Group, the parent company of the Limerick pharmacy, the firm's Rathborne Pharmacy in Dublin was their first store to have an AED installed. Unicare Pharmacy Limited is Ireland's largest pharmacy retail group with 72 pharmacies in 15 counties across Ireland.

"In 2008, a cyclist suffered heart failure just outside the Dublin pharmacy," she said. "An off-duty doctor who was jogging past knew we had a defibrillator and came to his aid. The AED re-started his heart and bought him some valuable time until emergency services arrived. There is no predicting when you will need to use one."

About the AED Plus

The ZOLL AED Plus is the first and only Full-Rescue AED that provides Real CPR Help®, which coaches rescuers with audio and visual prompts to the correct rate and depth of chest compressions during CPR. The AED Plus guides rescuers through the complete Chain of Survival helping all sudden cardiac arrest victims, not just those who need a shock. The AED Plus requires minimal training to operate and is ideal for the infrequent rescuer.

About Sudden Cardiac Arrest

SCA, an abrupt disruption of the heart's function, which causes a lack of blood flow to vital organs, claims more than 1 million lives worldwide each year. It is the leading cause of unexpected death in the world and strikes without warning. Currently, only about 5 percent of victims survive; 95 percent will die from SCA.

Source:
ZOLL Medical Corporation
DocMorris Pharmacy

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