Students in the Des Moines Public Schools will soon get some shocking information in their health classes. It has nothing to do with sex education — it involves training to use portable devices that can shock a victim of cardiac arrest back to life. Doctor Steven Bailin from the Iowa Heart Center in Des Moines has been helping with a program that’s putting two of the devices called “Automatic External Defibrillator” (A-E-D) in each high school.One will be placed in a central location at the school and the other will be placed where it can be used by the athletic department. Bailin says the incidents where young students will need a shock to get their heart going are few, but he says there’s always lots of visitors at school events. He says the moms, dads and grandmas that come to the school for athletic events, concerts and other activities will be protected by the devices. He says cardiac arrest is responsible for more than 300-thousand deaths in the U-S each year, and only five percent of victims survive their arrest. In fact, with each minute that passes without defibrillation, the chance of survival decreases by 10 percent. Bailin says the devices are designed to be used by almost anyone without much training. Des Moines students, though, will learn about the devices in their health classes. He says the training will be incorporated into the curriculum along with C-P-R training. Bailin says the devices are becoming more prominent in public places and he’d like to see more schools follow Des Moines’ example. Each A-E-D costs about two-thousand dollars. He says they hope the experience in Des Moines will spur other schools to buy the devices. He concedes tight budgets do make it tough for schools to buy the devices. Bailin says the purchase of the Des Moines units was done through grants, and the Heart Center will work with other schools to help raise funds through private businesses to purchase their own A-E-Ds
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