A piece of life-saving equipment - Lifepak 500 Automated External Defibrillator (AED). The defibrillators, one on each ambulance, and which the Leonia Police have in each police car is used to "jump start" someone's heart in the event of cardiac arrest. In the United States, sudden cardiac arrest claims more than 350,000 lives each year. As the leading cause of death in the U.S., heart attack and heart failure are major public health problems. Sudden cardiac arrest in adults is frequently caused by ventricular fibrillation, an abnormal, chaotic heart rhythm that prevents the heart from pumping blood. The most effective treatment for ventricular fibrillation is defibrillation; delivering an electrical shock to the heart with a device called an Automated External Defibrillator (AED).

Studies have shown that when a defibrillator is used within 5 minutes of cardiac arrest, the survival rate is 40 percent. But when the response time is 9 minutes, survival rate drops to 5 percent. That means that a persons chance of survival drops almost 10 percent every minute their heart is not beating. There’s only a 5 - 6 minute window in which the shock of an AED is likely to be effective in restoring the heart’s rhythm. Getting the unit quickly to the people who need it will increase their chances for survival.

The LIFEPAK 500 AED is a small, portable, easy-to-use, error-free machine. The lightweight AED unit’s voice prompt tells the first responder to immediately place the AED electrodes on the victim’s chest. The prompts then instruct the operator to press the analyze button & wait until the device assesses if the patient’s heart rhythm can be corrected with a shock. If a "treatable" rhythm is present, it tells the operator to push the red flashing button to deliver the appropriate shock. It then assesses the rhythm again. If electrical order has not been restored, it tells the operator to deliver a second shock. The shocks last just milliseconds. The machine tells the operator when to check for a pulse and if CPR should be continued.

The Leonia Volunteer Ambulance Corp has received 3 automatic defibrillators, which were donated by the Hackensack University Medical Center.

In October 2004, the Leonia Volunteer Ambulance Corps, upgraded all of our defibrillators for the very recent infant/child update. Prior to this important update, the defibrillators units could not be used on infants or children. The defibrillator, used in conjunction with special defibrillation pads, lowers the energy dose to the patient.