More AEDs ASAP!

Half of Conn

There are 190,000 Google results for the phrase “student died cardiac arrest.” Many of these stories quote devastated friends and parents who describe the victim as healthy and athletic. They say that they cannot believe that their loved ones are gone.

Why would Conn need to worry about heart failure? This is the same logic that stops people from taking steps to prevent future catastrophes. While most people die in the event of cardiac arrest, immediate treatment substantially increases chances of survival.

Emergency defibrillators are used when the heart stops beating completely—what is called cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrest can occur due to blunt force, intense physical activity, or if heart rate is disrupted in some other way. An automated external defibrillator (AED) is the best hope of survival for someone experiencing cardiac arrest, although every passing minute decreases their chance of survival by ten percent.

There are only two AEDs on our campus, one in the Athletic Facility and one with campus safety. These were added after a professor died ten years ago. It is conceivable that if there had been a defibrillator nearby, he may have lived. While the defibrillators we have now are valuable, it is shocking that out of all the NESCAC schools, Conn has by far the fewest. I asked Catharine Moffett, Director of Health Services, about the statistics for other similarly-sized schools.

She told me that as of 2009, Bates, which has fewer students than Conn, had eleven AEDs. Trinity, which is much closer to a hospital than Conn, had fifteen. Of the NESCAC schools, Middlebury has the second fewest, although it has five in total. This seems like a glaring problem. A lack of smoke detectors would not be tolerated by our school or by the law and would be fixed immediately. Deaths from heart disease are far more common among college students than those caused by fires. Everything possible must be done to prevent unnecessary death.

It is important to remember that not every person who comes onto our campus is a twenty-year-old in perfect health. Countless alumni, visitors and teachers, many of whom are older or might already have heart conditions, also need to be protected. Even students are more vulnerable than they would like to assume. It only takes a quick search on the Internet to find stories of talented athletes dropping suddenly on the field, who die because they do not receive immediate medical attention. Cardiac disease, which often does not appear until after puberty, can easily go undiagnosed. Not every congenital heart disease can be picked up by routine cardiac screenings, and it is impossible to protect someone with a heart condition from every possible accident.

If the AED with campus safety happens to be by Cummings Arts Center when someone in the Plex goes into cardiac arrest, how long will it take campus safety to reach them? What if classes are letting out, and there are students all over the road blocking their path? Or, what if a team is running on the track, someone falls and no one has the key to the Athletic Training Room where an AED is kept? And what if it happens to be off campus with a different team?

Five minutes may sound innocuous, but five minutes equals a 50% lower chance of survival when it comes to cardiac arrest. Other colleges have solved this issue by installing public access AEDs around their campuses that guide users step by step. Such units can cost a thousand dollars or less, which is a small price to pay when it comes to safety. Conn should not wait until someone dies to install more AEDs on campus. The community must know what to do in these situations, and be given the tools to act.