.”
Yet despite the enormous investment in these AEDs, the death rate from sudden cardiac arrest is no better than it was 20 years ago. It still kills more Americans than lung, breast, and prostate cancers and AIDS combined. Worldwide, it kills about 7 million people a year.
So what’s going wrong? Are too many AEDs badly designed or prone to malfunction? Are they just not numerous enough to be found and used in time? Or are there other reasons they aren’t saving lives, reasons that would render public AEDs a waste of money?
First, a primer on the problem. Sudden cardiac arrest is not a heart attack. In a heart attack, blood can’t flow properly to the heart but the muscle itself keeps beating, so sufferers typically remain conscious. In cardiac arrest, the heart’s pumping mechanism—an electrochemically choreographed affair—becomes deranged, so that the many motions of the various parts no longer work together to pump any blood. With no blood flowing to the lungs or brain, victims rapidly lose consciousness.
