Fri. February 15, 2013
WASHINGTON, DC – The DowntownDC Business Improvement District (BID) yesterday received a donation of seven automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, from the Cheney Cardiovascular Institute at George Washington University as part of a partnership that seeks to save the lives of Downtown workers, visitors and residents who might experience sudden cardiac arrest, the nation’s leading cause of death.
The donation, made to the DowntownDC BID’s Publically Accessible AED Program, was contingent on the BID’s Safety/Hospitality and Maintenance employees (SAMs) taking a comprehensive cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, course and learning how to use the AEDs. The donated devices will be placed in the SAM headquarters building at 1229 New York Avenue, in SAM information kiosks located near busy pedestrian areas, and in SAM maintenance and supervisor vehicles that patrol the DowntownDC BID area.
“This very unique gift addresses an urgent safety and health issue that can have dire consequences for anyone suffering from an electrical malfunction of the heart,” said Richard H. Bradley, the BID’s executive director. “Our goal is to have an AED unit available within one block of any public space in the BID.”
According to the Cheney Institute, more than 300,000 Americans per year die from sudden cardiac arrest. About 95 percent die before reaching the hospital. However, CPR can double or triple a patient’s chance of survival, and using an AED in the first minute can save 90 percent of all victims.
Ultimately, the BID wants to make all AED locations in Downtown available over a map-based mobile device application to allow BID staff and the general public to easily find them during an emergency. The BID is also now coordinating with the District of Columbia Fire and EMS Department to track and report AED usage.
More than 130 AED units have been identified on the lobby levels of buildings in the Downtown, and a coordinated effort to make these units publicly accessible within a single network can have lifesaving results. “Large property managers might have AED units in non-publicly accessible areas that can be moved to a public area to save more lives,” said David Kamperin, the BID’s director of Public Space Management. “To facilitate this move, we plan to develop a waiver granting open access to units during business or operating hours and obtain permission to include the AED locations in a mobile application.”
At a free monthly training seminar hosted by the BID yesterday, several property managers were briefed on the plan to expand AED access. The meeting was part of a series designed to educate and inform commercial property managers and tenants about emergency preparedness. These training seminars have covered a wide range of topics including fire code compliance, writing building emergency plans, responding to threats of violence in the workplace, addressing severe weather, developing a business continuity plan, and effectively communicating with staff and neighboring properties during an emergency situation.
Commercial property managers can contact David Riedman, homeland security manager, at davidr@downtowndc.org or 202-661-7575 for more information about the BID’s Publically Accessible AED Program.