Update:
I think that Framily members that attend Quartzsite may be concerned about the responsibility or liability of using this on someone having a heart attack. I have not had any of the QZ bunch to respond.
I do think that there would be very little liability in trying to save someone with the same equipment that hangs on the walls at most airports. It really is a simple device to use and certainly is preferable to doing nothing in a cardiac emergency.
As far as liability goes, unless the user were to deliberately do something that they knew to be wrong, any use of an automatic defibrillator will be covered by Good Samaritan laws, and the user would be absolved of any liability
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law#United_States.
Lest anybody have any fears of using one, they really are easy. Some years back I was the Director of Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs. One of our products was an automatic defibrillator. To test the ease of use, we gathered together several groups of adults, and also 8 to ten year old kids. None of them had ever used a defibrillator before. Although, I'm sure that most of them had seen defibrillators used on TV programs such as ER.
,One at a time, we sent each of them into a room with a defibrillator, and Resusci Anne. For those who don't know, Anne is the manikin used to teach CPR. We told each of them that Anne was unconscious, that this box was a defibrillator that might save her life. They were told to turn it on, and to do whatever whatever it told them to do. An observer was in the room to grade each person's performance.
We were not surprised that nobody completely failed. We were a bit surprised that on the whole, the kids slightly outperformed the adults. The main difference being that the kids were less hesitant.
Joel
