Keeping residents safe

Michelle Warren, The Chronicle, Willimantic, Conn.
·2 min read

Jul. 19—WILLIMANTIC — Windham emergency responders are always looking for new ways to keep their residents safe. Thanks to the town's HeartSafe Committee, one of the town's newest life saving devices, an Automated External Defibrillator, was installed at Lauter Park this month.

"I think this is super progressive," Willimantic Fire Chief Marc Scrivener said, referring to the device as a " game- changer."

Richard Shok, owner of Code One Training Solutions, LLC., the company that installed the device at Lauter Park, said an AED installed by his company in Westfield, Mass. recently saved a life.

That device was installed by a pickleball court.

" He was awake before EMS ( personnel) arrived," Shok said, referring to the patient involved in that incident.

The device is used on patients suffering from cardiac arrest and, if necessary, will deliver an electrical shock to a patient through defibrillation.

Shok's company sold the device to the town and installed it at the beginning of this month.

The device at Lauter Park is connected to the Willimantic public safety complex and dispatchers have the code to use it. Scrivener said each enclosure costs $895 and the AED costs just over $1,000.

The device installed at Lauter Park will be paid for by the town's Heartsafe Committee.

Windham Assistant Recreation Director Charles Olbrias, who runs the summer camp at Lauter Park, said one advantage of the device is that you don't have to be a " professional" to use it.

However, he hopes staff don't have to use it.

" I never want to field that phone call," Olbrias said.

According to the American Heart Association, 350,000 Americans die from cardiac arrest every year. The association also states that more people die from cardiac arrest across the world than colorectal cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, influenza, pneumonia, auto accidents, HIV, firearms and house fires combined. According to the American Heart Association, nine of 10 cardiac arrest victims who receive a shock from an AED in the first minute live.

Scrivener said the patient's chance of survival decreases by approximately 10% for

AED, Page 4