When I first started working in the medical device industry almost 30 years ago in 1995, it was a time before AEDs as we know them really existed in Ireland. The small medical company I worked for then provided a wide range of equipment mostly in the area of resuscitation with the salesperson at that time selling defibrillators to Ambulance Services around the country. In many cases, this was the first time ambulances were getting to carry and use defibrillators, thanks to the ECG analysis programme within which it could determine whether the patient needed a shock or not. Even hospitals only had defibrillators in acute areas such as theatres, coronary care and the accident and emergency departments, but not on the wards. I was fascinated with the machines and what they could do and soon I started learning that the ones we were supplying were saving lives in the hands of the Ambulance personnel. This was a first and especially important step towards improving outcomes from heart attacks and cardiac arrest.
What ambulance personnel see when they arrive on scene today has greatly evolved from what they saw even as recently as in the midnineties. When a person suffered a cardiac arrest, 999 was called and people waited for the ambulance to arrive. Nowadays, CPR is given by a by-stander and sometimes an AED is used, often just grabbed from the nearest hotel or shop, which is something we have come to expect them to have.
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