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Comment by tempestn | Hacker News Reader

> In a four-month pilot study testing the EMADE program, the service got 14 heart attack alerts that would be eligible for drones. Drones took off in 12 of those cases, and 11 successfully delivered the defibrillators. Seven of those defibrillators were delivered before the ambulance arrived.

It doesn't say how many of the 7 were actually used. I imagine it's less likely if there doesn't happen to be a doctor on scene.

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Defibrillators are now fairly fool proof and relatively easy to use, some of them even give you audio instructions on how to use them. I’m sure in most cases someone would be on the phone to an emergency medical expert. My guess is that they either didn’t save the patient or it wasn’t the right tool needed.

The only difference between a medically trained person and an average bystander is that the medical person will be more used to assessing the situation, taking a decision and then intervening with the patient.

You need no training to safely use an AED, though it will ask you to do chest compressions, and without training, the compressions are likely to be ineffective. Good compressions are surprisingly violent, and you'd never do that to someone unless you'd received training explaining why and how.

Less likely yes, but the publicly accessible defibrillators are pretty easy to use. They have big prints on them where to place the pads and after pressing the big green "On" button they start talking to you, explaining what to do.

They are also included in the standard CPR first-aid courses nowadays.

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