CHICAGO (AP) – It sounds futuristic: drones carrying heart defibrillators swooping in to help bystanders revive people stricken by cardiac arrest.
Researchers tested the idea and found drones arrived at the scene of 18 cardiac arrests within about 5 minutes of launch. That was almost 17 minutes faster on average than ambulances – a big deal for a condition where minutes mean life or death.
Drone-delivered devices weren’t used on patients in the preliminary study, but the results are “pretty remarkable” and proof that the idea is worth exploring, said Dr. Clyde Yancy, a former American Heart Association president who was not involved in the study.
Cardiac arrest is a leading cause of death worldwide, killing more than 6 million people each year. Most happen at home or in other nonmedical settings and most patients don’t survive.
“Ninety percent of people who collapse outside of a hospital don’t make it. This is a crisis and it’s time we do something different to address it,” said Yancy, cardiology chief at Northwestern University’s medical school in Chicago.