Co-Ops Give Hearts a Boost

Fred Blumenfeld, a retired comptroller who heads the co-op board at the Versailles at Tower of Waters Edge in Bayside, has given the 273 families in the building a jump-start for ailing hearts. His board has purchased a small, portable defibrillator for $3,750 and trained 16 of its residents to administer care for heart attack victims. The co-op will put its defibrillator into service next week and offer lifesaving treatment to residents. It joins dozens of sports arena, public facilities and local businesses which want to prevent any of their employees and customers from dying from a sudden heart attack.
The American Heart Association reported recently that fewer than 100 automatic defibrillators in key locations could have helped 10 percent of the 1,141 individuals who had cardiac arrest in public places in Seattle from 1990 to 1994.
Defibrillators can jolt a heart-attack victim back to life by electrically stimulating the heart Survival after cardiac arrest is rare without defibrillation; the AHA said that over 350,000 in the U.S. have sudden cardiac arrests every year and only 5 percent survive.
The AHA reports the top five sites where cardiac arrests occur include airports, county jails, shopping malls, sports stadiums and golf courses.The first co-op in Queens to purchase a defibrillator was North Shore Towers in Little Neck. A spokesperson said the equipment has been in place for a year, but thankfully hasnt had the need to use it.
At Versailles, the 16 volunteers have been trained by an emergency medical technician, Steve Spellman, in classes conducted in the building on specially designed dummies.
"Since 75 percent of the residents here are over 65, we thought it advisable to implement this plan at the Versailles," Blumenfeld said.
He said the Compass Life Pack 500-B machine has a built-in computer that "talks" to users and gives full directions. As a safety measure, the computer will activate the device only if it "knows," from instant measurements, if the patient is actually suffering a heart attack.
Last November, New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens began offering its Heart Rescue program to teach local businessmen how to use portable automated external defibrillators. "Its especially important that we facilitate the dissemination of these lifesaving devices, due to the incredible odds New York City sudden cardiac arrest victims are up against," said Dr. Diane Sixsmith, chair of NYHQs Emergency Department. "The odds of surviving cardiac arrest in New York City are among the lowest in the nation slightly more than 1 percent." (In March 1999, a California researcher released a report indicating that people who visited New York City were statistically more likely to suffer a heart attack during their trip than in any other location in the world, largely due to the inherent tension of the city that out-of-towners simply arent used to).
The Versailles program was started after a resident visited Florida and discovered the apparatus in wide use there. The co-op board decided to buy its own defibrillator from Compass Medical, Inc., in Rhode Island.
Blumenfeld said the co-op learned that trained laymen could operate the equipment easily and would have no legal liability.
Jay Rosenfield of Compass Medical said that legal protection is also offered in New York State through the Good Samaritan law.