Automated External Defibrillators, or AEDs, are used by ordinary people to perform an extraordinary task: bringing life-saving equipment to the side of a person whose heart has stopped beating. Beginning September 24, 2025, Reno County EMS staff are out in the community, ensuring local business, schools, churches, and the like, are prepared with public access AEDs. “As of July first,” says Connor Bounds, Education Coordinator for Reno County EMS, “state law requires registration of AEDs through the PulsePoint app. This allows EMS to ensure there are correct locations for community-based AEDs, all batteries and other critical equipment are not-expired and opens to the door for us to provide public education in CPR and first aid. We have already encountered some locations that have added other AEDs, and some that have expired supplies. And we have also had community members express interest in bystander CPR training.” Discussing the importance of bystander CPR and AED use, Bounds shared some shocking statistics, “For every one minute a person in cardiac arrest doesn’t get CPR and doesn’t get the AED applied and used, survivability drops by 10%. There are over 350,000 cardiac arrests outside of the hospital every year, and less than 10% of those survive. Getting this equipment and training out into the community can save lives.”
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