Defibrillators on American aircraftIn 1997, American Airlines became the first United States air carrier to place automatic external defibrillators on its fleet of 700 aircraft. AEDs are thus available to give immediate coronary care to in-flight heart-attack victims. Since seconds count, many lives have been saved by restoring the natural rhythm of their heart beats. The airline was the first public entity in the United States to do mass deployment of AEDs, and trained over 22,000 flight attendants on the use of the defibrillator. On 18 Feb 1998, their first passenger was saved when he collapsed on an aircraft after rushing to catch a connecting flight. On 12 Apr 2004, The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration required AEDs to be on commercial passenger aircraft of a certain size.«[The 1 Jul 1997 date was given in testimony to a U.S. Congress House Aviation Subcommittee hearing by Dr. David K. McKenas that American Airlines was first to "On July 1st, 1997... place ... AEDs, on its fleet." A later press release by American Airlines gives another date: "The program was turned on May 1, 1997."] |
