An Automated External Defibrillator (AED), or a defibrillator as many people know it as, is an electronic portable device that shocks the heart in an attempt to restore its natural rhythm when someone is in sudden cardiac arrest.
Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is a condition in which the heart stops beating suddenly and unexpectedly due to malfunction in the heart’s electrical system. Anyone including children can have a cardiac arrest, in fact 75,000 to 100,000 thousands lives are lost each year in the UK from sudden cardiac arrest. Immediate CPR and defibrillation increases chance of survival from just 5% to over 50%
Sudden death can occur in minutes if essential equipment such as a defibrillator is not made available immediately.