Emergency ambulance crews are
hampered by distance in rural areas and
traffic congestion in cities--critical
factors in getting emergency help to
someone in cardiac arrest. A cardiac
arrest away from a hospital in this
country has a survival rate of only eight
to ten percent. Reducing the time to
get defibrillation (shocking the heart) is
considered the most important factor to
increase survival. There may be a
better way. In Sweden, a drone
equipped with an AED (automatic
external defibrillator) is dispatched to a
location pinpointed by a 911 phone call.
Median time from dispatch to arrival of
the drone was just over five minutes
compared to a median arrival time of
twenty-two minutes by ambulance--
perhaps a life-saving sixteen-minute
difference!