Airport Drama Highlights Importance of Defibrillators

A recent tour of Germany by Martek Marine to promote a piece of equipment to save the lives of crews at sea got off to a dramatic and eventful start with an unscheduled real life demonstration in the airport.

Jonathan Love, Martek Marine’s Regional Sales Manager for Southern Europe, had not even left British soil when he was called on to use the equipment for real.

Jonathan explains:

“I was queuing at my local Airport to catch a flight to Hamburg where I had five of the largest German Ship owners lined up for a demonstration of our LIFEFORCE Automated External Defibrillator (AED).

Little did I know I would shortly be called upon to test the simplicity and ease of use of this life saving piece of equipment for real!”

Wisely, Steve Coulson, Business Development Manager at Martek Marine, had taken an earlier decision to invest in live units for these demonstrations instead of the usual low cost inactive samples that are commonly used by the competition. Jonathan continues:

“A lady in front of me suddenly keeled over in the queue. Aware that Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is one of the world’s biggest killers (taking over 3 million lives per year) I went straight to her and began to administer first aid.”

The casualty was placed in the recovery position after Jonathan cleared an obstruction in her airway allowing her to breathe more freely.

“Applying the LIFEFORCE defibrillator to the casualty who was now unconscious and breathing erratically, I feared the worst. It is critical to administer treatment for SCA as soon as possible as any chance of survival lowers after the first few minutes of such an incident. However, the system reported in detail that the patient’s heart was functioning normally and the cause of the collapse was not related at this stage to any issue with her heart. In such cases, the LIFEFORCE unit will not administer a shock in a further stage of casualty protection. With her condition still deteriorating however, I kept the unit in place as advised by my training in case the primary condition, now believed to be the result of a head trauma from several years ago, triggered an SCA event.”

“The casualty remained unconscious for well over thirty minutes until the paramedics arrived. Calming her travel partner during this period, the casualty slowly regained consciousness in the airport concourse while still attached to the lifesaving equipment. I was glad when the Paramedics arrived and took over the duty of care.”

“I urge you to consider securing a LIFEFORCE unit whether you are on a vessel or simply in an office as you will never be given a warning when you may need to use one for real. SCA will strike without any prejudice at anytime. Our aim is to have every vessel equipped with this life saving equipment”.

In a stark reflection of the wide reach of SCA in the population, the reason it took Paramedics 30 minutes to attend to the woman was that they had actually been delayed because they had been treating an SCA victim in another part of the airport.

Find out more about Martek's defibrillators for your ships and offices.