By Bryan Boggiano
City leaders are working on ways to make parks safer.
The Coral Springs city commission will discuss installing cabinets with Stop the Bleed kits, automated external defibrillators (AEDs), and monitoring services at various parks at their Wednesday meeting.
According to city documents, the contract would be $175,500 with The Power to Save A Life, Inc., DBA Advocates For Health, to install 30 cabinets at nine city parks and city hall. Over the next two years, monitoring services will cost $34,200.
The AEDs themselves would cost $75,000, which the city will also consider purchasing.
Maintenance costs will include monitoring, inspection, testing, certification services, and repair and replacement of cabinets and cabinet parts.
The locations are Mullins Park, Cypress Park, North Community Park, Betti Stradling Park, Cypress Hammock Park, Riverside Park, City Hall (exterior), Kiwanis Park, Sportsplex Park, and Dr. Paul’s Dog Park.
Based on American Heart Association recommendations, the cabinets would be centrally located throughout the parks.
Each cabinet would be no more than 90 seconds to and from any point in the parks or city hall, assuming the average person jogs at 5 miles per hour.
Parks will have signage directing people to the nearest cabinet.
Cabinets will have an infrared lens to take pictures as they are opened, with automatic notifications to first responders. According to city documents, additional images will be taken and notifications sent if the AED is removed. There will also be an audible alarm with visible lights and an emergency call button.
Each AED location will be registered with the mobile app PulsePoint. When dispatch receives a call for CPR, anybody with the app will receive a notification and the nearest AED location.
They will be equipped with a multi-carrier SIM card that will connect to the strongest available signal and are solar-powered or hard-wired electric on corrosion-resistant pedestals.
The Coral Springs Regional Institute of Public Safety and Coral Springs Community Risk Reduction will host AED awareness and Stop the Bleed training at each site before when the equipment becomes operational.
According to the city, 350,000 cardiac arrests occur each year outside hospitals in the United States. On Jan. 2, an AED helped restart Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin after he had a cardiac arrest on the field, according to KATV News.
Nine out of 10 cardiac arrest victims who receive a shock from an AED in the first minute survive, according to the American Heart Association. An AED does not administer a shock to a patient if their heart rhythm does not indicate they need it.
If approved, the city expects the AED equipment to be delivered in either May or June. The city also expects pedestals and cabinets to be delivered by June 1. The new system is set to begin on July 1.
The National Institutes of Health estimates AEDs may save up to 1,700 lives annually.
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