Discover why AED drills are important and learn how to run an effective drill.

AEDs can save lives, but only if educators and administrators are prepared to take action. Tornado, fire, lockdown, and even active shooter drills are the norm for most schools across the country, but when is the last time you scheduled a sudden cardiac arrest (SCA)/AED drill?

In this post, we’ll discuss the reasons why SCA/AED drills are important in schools and we’ll give you the tools you need to create an effective drill.

A couple of weeks ago, we covered the importance of AEDs in schools. However, if you’re a by-the-numbers kind of person, here are a few statistics about SCA in schools and in children under the age 18:

1. In the United States, 1 in 25 schools experiences an SCA event each year.
2. In 2017, 7,037 children died from cardiac arrest.
3. Schools are community gathering places, and adults are even more likely to suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in a school setting than young adults.
4. The hospital survival rate of students who experience SCA in a school with an AED is approximately 70%.
5. The hospital survival rate of students who experience SCA in a school without an AED is approximately 8%.
6. Student-athletes are more than 2 times as likely to die from SCA than non-athletes.
7. 66% of the deaths caused by SCA in children occur during regular exercise.
8. SCA caused by commotio cordis is the most common cause of traumatic death in youth baseball.
9. Survival decreases an astounding 10% every minute until a defibrillator shock is applied.
10. SCA in young people can be caused by Long QT Syndrome, commotio cordis, or congenital heart disease.

Sources: American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, Resuscitation Journal, Close the Gap, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, National Institute of Health, C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.

How to Run an Effective AED Drill: Create, Practice, and Review.

Developing and running effective AED drills are an essential part of your school’s emergency plan. Because the single most important contributing factor for survival of SCA is minimizing the time from collapse to defibrillation —  survival decreases an astounding 10% every minute until a shock is applied — knowing what to do and how to do it quickly may save a life of a student, parent, or school employee.

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