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An automated external defibrillator has been presented to the Bishop Museum by the American Heart Association of Hawaii. Heart association
gives defibrillator
to the Bishop MuseumStar-Bulletin
"We're happy to make the museum a safer place to visit by providing it with an AED," said William Dang, cardiologist and medical chairman of AHA's Operation Heartbeat initiative.
Moe Keale, cardiac arrest survivor and AHA of Hawaii volunteer, and Dory Clisham, education and training manager for American Medical Response, presented the Survivalink AED yesterday to the museum's president, Bill Brown.
Clisham, AHA of Hawaii volunteer AED trainer, also provided training to museum staff members.
The gift is part of an AHA campaign that began in 1998 with a 50th-anniversary celebration in Hawaii.
In distributing defibrillators to public areas and facilities, the organization is giving something back to communities that have supported it over the years, Dang said.
"The intent of these gifts is to put these lifesaving devices in the hands of security guards or specially trained employees working in buildings where large numbers of people gather or work."
The goal, he said, is to reduce deaths from cardiac arrest 25 percent by 2010.
Dang said widespread distribution of the defibrillators coupled with trained personnel can increase the chances that a cardiac arrest victim's heart is restarted before death occurs.
Rescuers have about four minutes to restart the heart before lack of oxygen causes brain damage to occur. Brain death may occur in 10 minutes.