University Hospitals donates new CPR system to Kent Fire Department, city of Kent

Words by: Alex Kamczyc, Alec Slovenec

Kent City Council approved donations by the University Hospitals in a unanimous decision  on Wednesday, April 18th. The donations involve two new CPR systems aimed to help both the Kent Police department and Kent Fire Departments provide assistance to those in need more efficiently.

One of the donations involved the integration of PulsePoint with 911 services in Kent. PulsePoint is a phone app that alerts CPR-certified users when someone is suffering from cardiac arrest within a nearby location. With this innovation, Kent hopes that civilians trained in CPR can stabilize those suffering until health services arrive on scene.

The donations were presented by a representative from University Hospitals, along with Kent Fire Department Chief John Tosko, at the last city council meeting, held on April 4.

“At the last meeting we discussed it. There wasn’t a whole lot of resistance,” said Council-at-Large Gwen Rosenberg. “It’s really valuable equipment. We’re more than happy to accept that.”

University Hospitals first approached the Kent Fire Department with the app last fall, and has been in discussion since.

“If you save one life, it’s worth it for sure,” said Lieutenant Patrick Edwards of the Kent Fire Department. “It’s exciting, it’s new, and we’ll see how she works out.”

The other donation involved four cases for the Kent Fire Department’s Lucas machines which provide automatic CPR for those in need.

“Our cases were all worn out because we did use them quite a bit, and University Hospitals gave us all new cases for those,” said Edwards. “They’re way easier to use.”

The Lucas Chest Compression System is a device used to deliver uninterrupted compressions in order to get cardiac activity back in a victim. This donation will help firefighters on scene provide an easier method of help cardiac arrest victims.

“I had a chance to do a ride-along with our fire department, and they were demonstrating some of the equipment, and it’s an incredible life-saving device,” said Rosenberg. “Otherwise, CPR has to be manually delivered. You can’t do it in a moving vehicle, you can’t do it up and down stairs, and the really critical first moments of a heart attack are when you really need it.”

These donations come from a long relationship that University Hospitals and the City of Kent has. University Hospitals has donated a number of things to both the Kent Police Department and the Kent Fire Department to help improve the quality of services.

“They have been generous since they’ve taken over the county hospital,” said Mayor of Kent and President of City Council  Jerry Fiala. “They’ve given our fire department different equipment that they haven’t had before, they’ve given our police department equipment that they didn’t have and it hasn’t cost the taxpayer a single penny. Anything they have done for us is just an answer to what we can do for the public.”

PulsePoint is currently in the process of being implemented in Kent, and will be available soon for CPR-certified users.

“Anything we can do to give our safety forces, I don’t care if it’s the fire department or police department, a mechanism to enhance their job only guarantees the safety of the citizens,”Jerry Fiala. “It’s gonna make them better people.”