Wednesday, May 13, 2009

If I can't have Dr. Robert Albin as a neighbor, I'll settle for an AED's in every Dunwoody Police Car.


Fox 5 has a wonderful story about Dunwoody resident Jim McNab having a heart attack and being saved by his neighbor Dr. Robert Albin, a pulmonologist at St. Joseph's Hospital who used a technique that he had only read about but never performed previously. Here is the link to the story and I have embedded the video for your viewing pleasure.

Since Dr. Albin isn't guaranteed to be on duty in case of the next Dunwoody heart attack, I fully support the suggestion we received from Mr. Bob Lundsten at last week's city council meeting, requesting that the City install an AED (automated external defibrillator) in every Dunwoody Police Car.

The price of the necessary devices needed to have one in every police vehicle serving on the streets of Dunwoody will never equal the cost of saving a residents life. Had these devices been available with trained officers, the amount of time that Jim McNab's heart had stooped beating may have been cut in half and therefore the extraordinarily measures taken by Dr. Albin may not have been necessary.

Funding for these devices has not yet been secured and I believe I heard from Mr. Lundsten that community donations will be sought. So if every Dunwoody resident pitched in $1.00 to purchase these devices, each of us could in our own small way, be a life saving hero like Dr. Robert Albin.

Further details on possible fund raising for these devices will be coming soon.

2 comments:

Mark said...

Hi John,

Perhaps the city could purchase or request the paper of record to advertise for donations from residents interested in seeing our patrol cars thus equipped. I am certainly game to offer a few dollars as the value of the devices is clear to me. I'm sure other means of rallying the community to voluntarily raise funds would not be difficult to envision.

John Heneghan said...

Have you donated to the AED fund?

Today's news: CNN Link on therapeutic hypothermia