Gilchrist County Fire Rescue receives CPR devices

Gilchrist County Fire Rescue received five new Automated CPR Devices with the assistance of a Florida Department of Health matching grant. Each of the  Advanced Life Support units staffed in our County will now have a device that, once applied to a patient suffering a cardiac arrest, would perform high quality, uninterrupted chest compressions.

 

In late 2019, GCFR acquired one of these devices and saw a 17% increase in patients who regained a pulse after experiencing a cardiac arrest. The Department also had a 10% increase in patients who survived an out of hospital cardiac arrest and were discharged home.

 

According to data published by the American Heart Association, only 29% of patients can expect to regain a pulse after experiencing a non-traumatic out of hospital cardiac arrest and only nine percent of patients will be discharged from the hospital. During GCFR’s trial period, 47% of all non-traumatic cardiac arrest patients transported regained a pulse, and 13% were discharged from the hospital back to their homes.

 

With the addition of these devices to all of our units, Gilchrist County Fire Rescue aims to continue improving this statistic and providing the highest level of pre-hospital care to the citizens and visitors of Gilchrist County.