NAMPA, Idaho — Artificial defibrillation devices, like the one inside the Idaho News 6 station, are lifesaving tools that can increase your chance of surviving cardiac arrest up to 90% if administered within 60 seconds. That’s why the Nampa Fire Protection District created the state’s first AED loaner program, which received a donation Tuesday from nearby Amalgamated Sugar.
“It’s a community AED program,” said Jeff Mutchie, retired Division Chief who now works on special projects for Nampa Fire. “And so the goal is to have as many AEDs in the community in case there’s a cardiac event or just giving somebody early access.”
Nampa residents can borrow one of three AEDs from the Nampa Fire Protection District, ideally for an added layer of health and safety for large private events.
The program was spearheaded in the waiting room after EMS Division Chief Tom Wright experienced a heart attack while at a fire conference in McCall.
“Most of the chiefs in the valley were up there. And I began having some chest pain that resulted in me passing out. Turns out I was in cardiac arrest,” Wright said.
While Tom’s colleagues immediately began CPR, Meridian’s EMS chief had an AED in his car and was able to shock Tom back in the hotel.
“You would think that in a room in a banquet hall full of firefighters, there would be more than one AED there, and the hotel at that time did not have one. Thanks to the St. Luke’s Foundation Fund, they were able to purchase an AED for that hotel now,” Wright said.
On Tuesday, to celebrate a safety milestone — 250,000 hours without even a minor injury — Amalgamated Sugar donated $5,000 to Nampa Fire’s AED program after one of their employees experienced his own cardiac event.
“My wife and my daughter were there,” said Craig Ashcraft, maintenance manager at Amalgamated Sugar. “They performed CPR for somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes before the first responders got there, where they used the paddles to get me going again.”
The current program in Nampa just requires a $50 refundable deposit, a driver’s license, and CPR certification.
The AED program’s next goal is to have every single first responder vehicle equipped with an AED.
“How close are you to having one in every police vehicle?” Mutchie was asked.
“We’re still working on that. So right now we have one in all of our staff vehicles,” Mutchie said. “With this donation from Amalgamated, this allows us to purchase an additional four to five units, plus they’re donating an extra three units. So that’s, you know, seven to eight units that we can put in police vehicles, which is huge.”
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