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Drone helps save cardiac arrest patient in Sweden:
An autonomous drone has helped to save the life of a 71-year-old man who was suffering a cardiac arrest.
The drone delivered a defibrillator to a doctor helping the man, who became ill while shovelling snow outside his house in Trollhattan, Sweden.
The man, who didn't wish to be named, told the BBC it was "fantastic" that it arrived so quickly.
The company behind the drone says it meant that defibrillation could begin before the arrival of an ambulance.
Everdrone says it took just over three minutes from the alarm being raised until the Automated External Defibrillator (AED) was delivered.
[...] The patient told the BBC he doesn't remember what happened that day in early December.
He was clearing thick snow from his driveway but when the cardiac arrest hit, "everything went black", he said.
[...] Dr Mustafa Ali, who happened to be driving past at the time, rushed to help and told Everdrone: "I was on my way to work at the local hospital when I looked out the car window and saw a man collapsed in his driveway.
"The man had no pulse, so I started doing CPR while asking another bystander to call 112 (the Swedish emergency number).
"Just minutes later, I saw something flying above my head. It was a drone with a defibrillator."
Everdrone chief executive Mats Sallstrom believes the technology played a part in a team effort to save the patient's life.
"It's a medical doctor doing CPR, it's the early defibrillation, it's the treatment in the ambulance on the way to the hospital," he told the BBC.
"It's important to understand that there's a chain of events saving the person's life, and the drone is a very critical part of how that system works."
The drone is a partnership between the Karolinska Institutet - Sweden's largest medical university - together with the national emergency operator SOS Alarm, Region Vastra Gotaland and Everdrone.
Finally some happy news.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by nostyle on Sunday January 09 2022, @03:12AM (4 children)
In 1996, following my second heart attack (I got stented), we were contacted by the local university to be part of a study of deploying automated defibrillators to at-risk cardiac patients. The wife was trained to follow the machine's instructions, and we did a couple practice sessions. We were issued our very own defibrillator. The fire department was also notified that there was one in our house so that if they got a call from one of our neighbors, maybe our machine could get there faster than they could and save a life.
The defibrillator sat on a shelf for eight years. Then one day we heard beeping from the closet and discovered it was a low battery alarm on the device. We contacted the study group, and they swapped us a new one.
That one sat on a shelf for another ten years. The battery died, but we never heard an alarm for it - perhaps we were out of town when it went off. We looked into getting it replaced, but the study was ended, and no one was interested in reviving the dead machine. We eventually dropped it at the fire department for proper recycling.
Long story shortened... neither machine ever saw any use whatsoever. My cardiac problems persisted, but I managed to get by with nitro pills and aspirin to control angina. The doctors gave me a double by-pass back in 2016 which has left me symptom free so far since then.
Issuing defibrillators to citizens is a stupendously stupid and wasteful notion. Making doctors carry them around everywhere is only slightly less stupid. Having a defibrillator delivery drone on station at every fire department might be a pretty good idea.
Oh... and FWIW smoking tobacco is a pretty bad idea.
--
"...workin' too hard can give you a heart attack" - Billy Joel, Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song) [genius.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 09 2022, @07:36PM (3 children)
Those were external defibrillators. I'm thinking internal automated defibrillators, basically a souped up pacemaker. We already have them, but for high risk patients only.
You wouldn't need the juice of an external defibrillator to get this thing going. Even now, implantable defibrillators can operate for 5-7 years on standby. My take is that in a few decades, the reliability of this stuff might improve to the point where it makes sense to put it in healthy people as well.
(Score: 2) by nostyle on Monday January 10 2022, @12:35AM (2 children)
Dude!
In the middle of a pandemic, we can't even convince folks to voluntarily get injected with a vaccine that could save their life.
Good luck getting them to volunteer for a cardiac implant when they are healthy!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 10 2022, @06:37AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @03:14PM
You make it mandatory like the Harkonnen heart valves so they can water the plants with the inferior members blood. Include a cellular or pager style feature and any political dissidents can be easily warned with a defib, or terminated with a longer defib. Also you can save their life if they turn out to be a useful asset!
Makes you think... you might need a drink.