March 6, 2001

PRESS RELEASE

To: Newsroom

For Immediate Release

Contact: Brian A. Crawford, Public Information Officer

Phone: 673-6652, cell: 455-2609, page: 675-2137

Fire Department and Church Form Partnership to Save Lives

The Shreveport Fire Department and Summer Grove Baptist Church have formed a partnership to create a pilot program to model the use of automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) and increase CPR training for the public. The program was modeled after several recent reforms and revisions concerning the use of AEDs by the general public, including The American Heart Association’s position on early defibrillation, recent Louisiana State law allowing lay persons to operate AEDs, improved and less expensive technology, and a willingness of local agencies, such as the Shreveport Fire Department, to promote such life saving programs.

AEDs are mechanical devices that deliver an electric shock through the chest wall of a person suffering a cardiac arrest in an attempt to restart the heart. Each year more than 250,000 Americans die from an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. According to The American Heart Association, the best chance of survival a person suffering a cardiac arrest has is to receive early defibrillation (AED shock). Other factors include immediate use of 911, widespread training, and rapid availability of an AED.

The Shreveport Fire Department has used AEDs since 1985 and can attest first hand to their live saving pedigree. There is no other tool or medicine that is at our disposal that has saved more lives in this community than the AEDs. With this affiliation we hope to provide information, guidance, and resources to promote community wide spread deployment of this program. Summer Grove Baptist Church eagerly took on the first pilot project, entitling it "The Elisha Plan." Several other churches in the area are being targeted and have expressed an interest in the program. This is a win-win situation for the city and the community, says Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran. "If we can provide guidance and information to increase the awareness of rapid AED intervention and accessibility, the lives saved, and there will be many, will speak for themselves," adds Cochran.

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