By Tammy Seimears
Madison News – November 7, 2013
Submitted by Newz Group Clipping Service – November 17, 2013
Commissioners discussed the possibility of placing Automated External Defibrillators, AEDs, in the county fire barns at their weekly meeting on Monday of this week. An AED is a portable electronic device that automatically diagnoses the potentially life threatening cardiac arrhythmias of ventricular fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia in a patient, and is able to treat them through defibrillation, the application of electrical therapy which stops the arrhythmia, allowing the heart to reestablish an effective rhythm.
Commissioner Brian Hind said that the Hamilton Fire Department members were considering obtaining an AED to have in their fire barn and getting the appropriate training to operate it. Because there is no ambulance housed in Hamilton, emergency crews must be dispatched from Madison, 10 miles north, or Eureka, 17 miles southwest. In the event of a heart incident, an AED would save precious minutes and possibly someone’s life. Hind said that several years ago, the county received a grant that paid for an AED to be placed in three locations in the county, Madison, Fall River and Fall River Lake. He commented that they are very easy to use and the Madison Fire Department has used it several times.
The Hamilton Fire Department is willing to pay half of the cost to purchase one and was asking if the county would consider covering the other half.
All three commissioners agreed that it would be a good idea to put one in Hamilton, as well as any other fire department in the county that would like one. They differed, however, on their opinions of where the money should come from.
Hind commented that he had priced them online and for one like Madison has, the county’s half would be about $850 or less. He said that normally it should come out of the EMS fund, but with the new ambulance purchase this year, it didn’t look like the money would be in the EMS budget.
Conard felt that the purchase should come out of the County Fire Department’s budget. Hind disagreed and said that it really wasn’t the Fire Department’s responsibility, that they were merely stepping up to learn how to run the AED to assist in response time for the Ambulance Department.
Hind also added that all the Fire Departments in the county should have an AED because once you get out of Eureka, the response time gets longer.
Conard thought it should come out of the Fire Department Equipment Fund. Hind again disagreed, saying that he failed to see how this was the Fire Department’s responsibility. He said the firemen are not using it to fight fire. They are using it to help EMS. Conard felt it shouldn’t come out of Courthouse General either. Commissioner Ben Fox suggested half from EMS and half from Fire.
“I think it’s a poor idea but I guess if you want to penalize us for being the ones that go out and do it, you can pull it out of the fire fund,” said Hind.
Fox commented that he thought they could be found cheaper online. Conard asked if ambulances that were housed in the communities were equipped with an AED. Hind said they were but the firemen don’t have access to the ambulance. He mentioned that if there’s a heart problem in Madison, the fire department is usually paged out at the same time and they use their portable AED.
Commissioners were in agreement that the AEDs should be purchased, just not where the funding should come from. They would like to wait and talk to Ambulance Director Brian Mongeau to see where his budget ends up.
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