Should everyone buy a home AED now that we’re all vaccinated?

by philg

Science proves that cardiac arrest cannot be caused by a COVID attempted vaccine. But Science also proves that we can never be killed by COVID-19 if we have been injected with at least 4 (or 5? or 6?) COVID shots. Therefore, we can move on to worrying about ways to die other than via SARS-CoV-2…. e.g., cardiac arrest!

A friend is a police officer and recently went through recurrent CPR training. Americans who get shot have a 90 percent survival rate, but those who suffer a sudden cardiac arrest survive only about 10 percent of the time. The automated external defibrillator (AED) is the key to survival, not CPR, according to the nurse who provided the training. Why not buy a home AED? They’re compact and available for as little as $700 “recertified”. The refurbished units are typically never-used machines that run out of their 4-year battery certification and the recertification process may be as simple as putting in a new battery.

Will the home AED definitely save you? The nurse training my friend explained that it probably won’t save a married man. “The wife would rather get the insurance money than provide resuscitation.”

“The AED in Resuscitation: It’s Not Just about the Shock” (2011):

Newer guidelines have simplified resuscitation and emphasized the importance of CPR in providing rapid and deep compressions with minimal interruptions; in fact, CPR should resume immediately after the shock given by the AED, without the delay entailed in checking for pulse or rhythm conversion.

Although CPR predated the development of the modern automated external defibrillator (AED), the technique seemed to be relegated to a lower priority after introduction of the modern AED. Recently, CPR has been increasingly recognized as a critical factor in treating cardiac arrest, in combination with the AED.

Readers: Do you have an AED in your house? If not, why not?

11 thoughts on “Should everyone buy a home AED now that we’re all vaccinated?”

  2. > Readers: Do you have an AED in your house? If not, why not?

    Unfortunately, our house doesn’t have one. Why? For COVID, our savior, Uncle Sam, offered free of charge COVID test kit via https://www.covid.gov/tests. So I visited https://www.aed.gov/tests looking for AED, but that link is broken.

    God forbid, if a member of my family, or a visiting person suffers a sudden cardiac arrest and dies at my home, can I sue Uncle Sam for not providing me with AED?

    • Fun fact: Steve Kirsch is MIT alumnus (MSc EE) who invented the optical mouse.

    • Scary fact: Universities were supposed to foster the free exchange of ideas, but Steve Kirsch was recently denied the opportunity to speak at MIT’s Kirsch Auditorium, which is named after him in recognition of his accomplishments and, more importantly, his significant donations.

      So not only is free speech dead, but heavily subsidized speech is dead also.

    • Thanks for this reference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Kirsch says “Kirsch also was a noted contributor to Democratic Party related funds.” So he actually funded the people who are now silencing him!

      (His idea that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluvoxamine will cure COVID-19 doesn’t seem plausible. It looks similar to Prozac, which is a feeble tool against depression. How is an anti-depression drug going to defeat what we are told is the most lethal virus in the human history?)

  4. No, we don’t, because I never knew they existed and people could buy a refurbished unit. Neither did my Dad! who had a heart attack three years ago. We kind of live in the woods and rely on an out-of-network (I think *any* network) ambulance outfit that regularly takes more than 1/2 hour to get here and then at least another 20 minutes to reach the nearest hospital (forget about it in the snow, you’re dead without a 4WD vehicle and people have died here because of it).

    Long story short, I thought he was going to die on his living room floor waiting for the ambulance, so I took the biggest gamble of my life. He was still semi-capable of walking so I told him to grab my shoulders and hang on while I got him in the car and drove like I was channeling Formula One. We got to the ER in time. They stabilized him quickly, and luckily it wasn’t massive.

    He spent three days in the hospital and then two or three months of rehabilitation three times a week and now he’s OK but a little weaker than he used to be. As we were leaving the hospital, his cardiologist took me aside and said quietly: “I know you drove pretty dangerously to get him here fast, and I don’t recommend that to anyone, but you probably saved his life.”

    During that entire time, not a single doctor or nurse even mentioned an AED to us as something to consider having around. Now we’re going to read up and buy one. His odds during a second heart attack are even worse, and it’s getting warm again. *Why* did he have the heart attack?

    #1) A congenitally small artery that he never knew about.
    #2) One of the dogs we used to own. I say “used to” because I basically forced him to have the dog euthanized. He was furious with me for about a month (STUBBORN!) – but our vet agreed: the dog was living a horrible life as the palsy kept advancing, and so was my Dad.
    #3) On the hottest day thus far that of the year, he decided to go about an extra 1/4 mile and it nearly killed him.

    Thank you very, very much for this post. He agrees we should get one. Now – go get a stress test!

    • Sorry, I said the dog had palsy but didn’t explain. For about a year prior as his dog was getting old, he developed a progressive neurological problem and by the time of the heart attack he couldn’t walk on his own, back legs useless. So my father was getting up several times every night to put the pooch in a sling and carry his rear end around. The dog weighed about 45-50 pounds. Then the same routine during the day as it also became incontinent. It was nightmarish. My Dad didn’t get a single good night of sleep for that entire time, but he categorically refused to consider euthanasia. He was vehemently opposed to it even after the heart attack. “It’s not my place to take life. It’s God’s place.”

      After the heart attack I had enough of that. I said: “We either have the vet help you straighten your mind out about this, or I’m leaving. And I MEAN IT. I am not going to watch you DIE walking that dog. I didn’t go to the vet with them – I wanted him to hear it from them, not me.

  6. In lieu of the $4000 in rent required to store 1 more piece of plastic, the lion kingdom just runs at least 40 miles/week & never went into middle management.

  7. Would car engine jump starter double as an AED?
    Hate to bring more staff that needs care and mind share to my daily life.

Comments are closed.