Paramedics enrolled in Gundersen Tri-State Ambulance’s professional responders program will now have an AED to take with them wherever they go.
Tri-State Ambulance recently distributed 40 AEDs that it purchased using dollars from the Gundersen Medical Foundation and a $20,000 grant from Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) railway. The AEDs will outfit Tri-State employees who’ve signed on as professional responders.
“The Foundation received gifts from two generous donors with a desire to support cardiac related services at Gundersen,” says Ashley Zibrowski, a fund allocation specialist at Gundersen Medical Foundation. “When it comes to cardiac incidents, time is of the essence, and equipping our off-duty EMS staff with AEDs to reach patients even faster is exactly the type of project our donors wanted to get behind. We feel fortunate to be the vessel that connected philanthropy to such an innovative service benefitting our community.”
AEDs a lift for off-duty responders
The professional responders are off-duty Tri-State employees who become on-duty responders when notified of a sudden cardiac arrest event in progress within a half mile of their location. As professional responders, they have permission to enter private residences to administer life-saving actions before first responders arrive.
“By having those professional responders who can respond to private residences specifically, we’re able to alert them if they’re nearby, which basically means that they’re going to be the nearest person who’s CPR trained,” says Evan Weis, Tri-State Ambulance program manager.
The AEDs are another important part of the response, as seconds matter when someone is in the throes of cardiac arrest. Statistics show that for every minute that passes without medical care, a patient’s probability of survival decreases by 10%.
Currently, Tri-State has 44 employees signed on as professional responders, but Weis said he’d like to see as many as possible join the ranks.
“It’s been a long road to try and coordinate all the moving pieces and get our crews enrolled,” Weis says. “There was pretty enthusiastic adoption early on from a lot of our employees, which was really encouraging.”
Shortening response times, saving more lives
The program is part of a larger goal of shortening the response time between a medical event and intervention, which in turn improves the chances of survival in meaningful increments.
“Early CPR and early defibrillation are what makes a difference for patients who have cardiac arrest,” Weis says. “As an ambulance, it takes us awhile to get there sometimes.”
But you don’t have to be a Tri-State employee to get involved. Anyone can be a public responder who, through the use of the PulsePoint app, can respond to a cardiac arrest event in public.