FIRE DEPARTMENT RECEIVES DEFIBRILLATOR EQUIPMENT FROM ST. FRANCIS

When a heart stops beating, seconds count. It is for that reason that the Cape Girardeau Fire Department will begin carrying heart-defibrillation equipment on trucks responding to medical emergencies.

The St. Francis Medical Center donated four defibrillators -- carrying a price tag of more than $21,000 -- to the fire department Thursday afternoon. The donation was the result of months of work by the department's chief medical officer, Lt. Brad Golden.

The defibrillators send a electrical shock via pads placed on the patient's chest, to "jump start" the heart. The units can send up to three shocks to the heart, varying in wattage, to establish a rhythm. A memory disc in the unit will be sent with the patient to the hospital, where emergency room personnel can insert it in a machine that will tell them what already has been done to revive the person.

"There are fire departments all over the country that are carrying this kind of equipment," said Dr. Charles Pancoast, medical control officer for Cape Girardeau and emergency medical services coordinator for the region. "Even some police departments carry defibrillators."

The Cape County Private Ambulance Service carries defibrillation equipment, but Pancoast said response time means everything when dealing with a heart attack.

"It just makes good sense," he said. "The fire department is three or four minutes away from just about anywhere in the city. And in a situation where a heart is no longer beating, the quicker you get there, the better chance the patient has for survival."

Pancoast said that for every minute that a heart is not beating, the patient's mortality rate increases by 10 percent.

"And after 12 minutes, the mortality rate is almost always 100 percent," said Pancoast. "When you consider that out of all the people who have heart attacks, 80 percent of them require ventricular fibrillation, you can clearly see the need to get the right equipment to the patient in the least amount of time."

Paramedics and emergency medical technicians in the department will go through a special certification course to use the new equipment before it is put on the trucks. Golden said that every 90 days, all personnel will be recertified.

"We now have an EMT at every station on every crew," said Golden. "So there should never be a time when a truck is on the scene and no one on board is certified to use the equipment."

The fire department hopes to have the defibrillators in service by June 10.

"Defibrillators have been around since 1966 and are completely safe," said Pancoast. "Having these on fire trucks can only be a win situation for Cape residents."