AED Scavenger Hunt Hosted by University of Pittsburgh

A typical person is walking along in a typical city when an ever-increasingly typical event occurs: Sudden Cardiac Arrest. You ask someone to call 9-1-1 and, as you start CPR, you send someone for an AED. The problem is: How does one know where the nearest AED can be found?

Well, the University of Pittsburgh Department of Emergency Medicine has joined a growing community who are logging AED locations in cities across the country. How are they doing this? It’s simple: Have a scavenger hunt! Instead of looking for minutia or oddities, the object is to locate and log AEDs. The HeartMap Pittsburgh Challenge results will allow emergency services dispatchers to help 9-1-1 callers with the location of the nearest AED.

Pittsburgh has joined the cities of Philadelphia, Denver, Seattle, Salt Lake City, and towns like Mentor, OH and Normal, IL (see, you don’t have to be a large city to act!) who have used scavenger hunts to compile a database of where AEDs are located which can be accessed by emergency personnel. Since SCA survival rates dramatically improve with early defibrillation, knowing where the nearest AED is located is truly a life-saving matter! Who’s up for a Scavenger Hunt?