Oak Park soon to receive emergency defibrillator

By Lori Porter porter@theacorn.com

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors will conduct a public hearing Jan. 25 to approve funding for a public defibrillator program and Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program for the community of Oak Park.

The programs will be funded via community service area no. 4 (Oak Park) revenue.

The Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) already has approved funding for the program.

A defibrillator is a device that shocks the heart and restores the pulse of cardiac arrest victims. Defibrillators are mostly used by medical rescue personnel, but the program features training members of the public to use the devices.

In a 2003 report from the National Institute of Health, Barbara Alving said, "Sudden cardiac arrest is a top killer of Americans." The agency’s study found that lives can be saved by training community volunteers to use defibrillators.

Diane Starzak, the Oak Park CERT coordinator responsible for implementing the program, shared her knowledge of defibrillators at the MAC meeting in which the funds were approved.

Referring to defibrillators as the next generation of CPR, Starzak said, "If we all just depended on paramedics to save us, we wouldn’t need training in CPR."

Placing these public safety programs under the umbrella of community service area no. 4 revenue will enable the MAC to purchase one defibrillator a year. They cost about $2,500 and will be placed throughout the community.

Another $5,000 willbe available to CERT in the future, officials said.

CERT members will continue to train employees at the locations where defibrillators will be placed.

According to Supervisor Linda Parks, community service area revenue has in the past been used to support Oak Park CERT activities.

Oak Park High School was selected to house the community’s first defibrillator after school district board members approved the measure last October.

After the program is formalized at the public hearing, high school personnel will be trained by CERT volunteers to properly use defibrillators.

Many in the community feel that these devices are priceless, given their record of success in saving lives.

While paramedics normally respond to emergencies in Oak Park in less than eight minutes, a cardiac arrest victim will suffer brain damage or even death if defibrillation or effective CPR isn’t administered within minutes of a heart attack, Starzak told MAC members.

Immediate defibrillation can improve survivability by 90 percent. After 12 minutes, survival plummets to 2 percent.