Updating a trend it started back in 1992, when Chicago’s McCormick Place purchased semiautomated defibrillators and trained its staff to use them, the complex will have 62 automated external difibrillators dotting its landscape by year’s end. Starting in January, cardiac arrest victims in the complex’s public areas will be no more than two minutes from the AEDs, a potentially life-saving measure for those suffering from coronary attacks.
A McCormick Place security or fire/safety officer will respond if a unit is taken from its station for use. More than 150 of these officers and complex managers already have been certified in CPR and trained to use the units; plans also are in the works to train office and trades personnel in their use.