A woman named Shannon and her sister together with their mother went out shopping in Leduc for her Mother’s Day present. Their family outing turned into a nightmare when their mother suffered shortness of breath, her lips turned blue. The sister called the emergency numbers. Her mother started to convulse.
Shannon moved her mother out of the shopping mall so that the ambulance can see them immediately. She asked for a defibrillator in the customer service and they just looked at Shannon, confused and paged the management. Management never came. And at time the ambulance arrived.
Availability of an AED
During that time while we were waiting for the ambulance, her mother suffered cardiac arrest and defibrillator is not available. The crew of the ambulance was not able to bring her mother back. According to Shannon she does not want another family to go through what we did, and wants to prevent something like this to happen again.
Shannon wished if the store employees knew if the store had an automated defibrillator or not. If she was told that there was none, then she could ask help from another store nearby.
In Alberta, businesses or public places is not required to have an AED or automated external defibrillator in the area. According to the spokesperson of the government, if employers of businesses chose to add AED, the device should be included into the emergency response plan and first aid program.
Shannon suggested that all business establishments should be equipped with defibrillator machines and train staff to know where they are located and all staff and the management should be trained well in first aid. It’s been hard on us that it happened very fast. Maybe it could have helped.
Response from the mall
In an email from the management of the shopping mall stated that they were very sorry for what happened to their customers and will meet the requirements across Canada to have well trained CPR and first aid responders in their stores. And they also plan to install automated defibrillators or AED. And they are hoping to be prepared and be able to provide help for our customers and employees in case of any emergencies.
According to the Emergency Medical Services public information officer, an automated external defibrillator is one of the critical links in the chain of survival. To have a person survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, it is important to recognize that there is a cardiac arrest, start providing CPR, calling emergency numbers and using an automated defibrillator if available.
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LEARN MORE
Learn how to help by enrolling in a CPR class and for more information, check out these sources:
https://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-a-Defibrillator.aspx