HomeMy WebLinkAbout[05] Joel Vogel - Outdoor AEDs
Council Agenda Item 5
MEETING DATE: June 3, 2019
AGENDA ITEM: Joel Vogel – Outdoor AED’s
SUBMITTED BY: Administration
BOARD/COMMISSION/COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION: N/A
PREVIOUS COUNCIL ACTION:
BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Joel Vogel will be presenting information on placing AED’s
outside in strategic places. Included is a recent article on the need for outdoor AED’s and a map
illustrating locations.
ATTACHMENTS: RCA
St. Cloud Time’s Story
Map of possible AED locations
REQUESTED COUNCIL ACTION: Provide Direction.
3-19-19
SARTELL — If you needed a defibrillator to save someone's life, would you know where to find
one?
Sudden cardiac arrest is more common than you may think — it could happen unexpectedly
during everyday tasks like mowing the lawn or playing a sport, like the hockey player who went
into cardiac arrest on the ice last month.
That hockey player survived because a fellow player knew CPR — and because the rink had an
automated external defibrillator (AED).
Some Central Minnesota residents are taking the fate of their hearts into their own hands and
pushing for more access to AEDs, especially outdoors where they can be accessed at all times.
"If you live in your house, do you know where the closest AED is?" asked Joel Vogel, a member
of the local Mended Hearts chapter. "I found it, but it’s in a locked building."
(Stearns Sheriff Steve Soyka and Mended Hearts Member Joel Vogel talked about upping access
to AEDs on March 11, 2019. (Photo: Jordyn Brown)
Vogel got involved with Mended Hearts after he had a heart attack 15 years ago. Since then he's
run a golf tournament that raises money for Mended Hearts, a nonprofit support group for heart
patients. The events have supported the placement of 26 AEDs across Central Minnesota since
2012.
Only three outdoors and accessible 24/7 — one in Sartell's Pine Point neighborhood and two
along Long Lake near Clearwater.
"If you don’t get to someone within five minutes with an AED, the chances aren’t very good at
all," he said. "Our goal is to have St. Cloud be one of the safest places to live with AEDs."
(AED located on Pine Point Road Sartell MN)
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute describes sudden cardiac arrest as a condition in
which "the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating."
"A sudden cardiac arrest is a sudden electrical problem with your heart... and a heart attack is a
plumbing problem," said Rich Feneis.
Feneis lives in Pine Point neighborhood, and is the person behind what he and Vogel were told
was the first outdoor AED in Minnesota.
"The more I got thinking about it I just thought, there’s gotta be a way of putting AEDs outside,"
he said.
So, Feneis applied for a grant through CentraCare and started working with its Take Heart
Program to make it happen.
"About 90 percent of cardiac arrests happen outside of the hospital," said Sharon Mentzer,
program manager. "So they’re happening in our homes and public settings...Currently right now,
the AEDs that are housed are in businesses and are (only) accessible when the businesses are
open. So there’s a limitation there."
This is why Feneis and Vogel want to get more outdoor AEDs and take the ones inside
businesses now and move them outside for people to access around the clock. "80 percent of
heart attacks happen in the home," Feneis said. "So it makes even more sense to have AEDs in
neighborhoods where the homes are."