Brigantine

A Heartsafe Community

Heart Disease and Cardiac Arrest are the Leading Cause of Death in the United States

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Chief Holl

For those of you who don’t know the Late Chief Jim Holl, he had an enormous impact on the Brigantine Fire Department and the City of Brigantine.  I would be up here for hours if I were to run down all of his accomplishments and accolades.  Unfortunately the one accomplishment he would not see completed was one that he was very passionate about, having Brigantine acknowledging as a heart safe community.

Chief Holl was trained as a Nurse, paramedic and EMT.  He was also a distinguished member of United Stated Air Force.  These disciplines gave him a unique perspective and allowed him to see the EMS system in its entirety and what was possible.  Particularly, he had the vision to see that advances could be made in Out of Hospital Cardiac arrest care.

First, he was instrumental in aligning the Brigantine Fire Department with advanced medical training.  All current members are trained FF/EMTs, this is an important component of creating a Heartsafe community.

He then sought medical director oversight to include AED use in our ambulance service.

From there he realized that one department could not combat cardiovascular disease alone.  He turned other public safety departments and to the community, by holding CPR and AED classes for the public along with providing AED access to the first two locations, City Hall and the Police Ops.  He discussed the importance of this mission with me and I was happy to help him in his efforts in starting this worthwhile program.  His vision was well ahead of its time and the list of his contributions goes on and on.  It’s been approximately 15 years of work from that point to get us to where we are today.

Heartsafe Community

Basically is a total systematic approach to increase survival from Cardiac Arrest in the community

It is a commitment to follow the American Heart Association’s recommendations of best practices which includes

1. Supporting the AHA chain of Survival which is:
   1. Early recognition of a heart attack or cardiac arrest and activation of 911, immediate high quality CPR, Rapid Defibrillation, Basic and advanced Emergency medical services, advanced life support and post arrest care
2. Widespread CPR instruction
3. Public access to AEDs (defibrillators)
4. Aggressive Resuscitative protocols for EMS providers
5. Coordination with Advanced Life support and definitive care
6. Follow up Care (supportive Cardiac Rehab programs like AtlanticCare)

What have we done?

Through a whole public safety approach that involves all of the departments and the community:

1. We have educated hundreds of members of the community in CPR and AED use and still do so quarterly with the help of the Community Education and Recreation Department
2. We have also trained numerous teachers and staff of the Brigantine Schools district to exceed the requirements of Janet’s Law
3. With the addition of the 2 AEDs donated by the Elks tonight we currently have 19 Publicly Accessible AEDs
4. When someone calls 911 in Brigantine they get one of our highly trained EMDs (Emergency Medical Dispatchers) who are instrumental in the Achieving the recommendations of the AHA
   1. They can help the caller be quicker to recognize the signs and symptoms of Cardiac Arrest and even provide step by step CPR instructions
      1. From there they provide immediate dispatch to both the police and Fire Department
   2. The Police department also has all of its members trained in CPR and AED use and they in a lot of cases will arrive on scene first and begin resuscitation and AED use.
   3. The Fire Department has adopted the latest and best practices in out of hospital resuscitation and currently send an Engine and an ambulance to all cardiac arrest calls. From there each member has dedicated roles in resuscitation (which is called Pit Crew CPR).  It is not unlikely that members will continue efforts on scene for up to an hour in some cases as new data shows the greatest likelihood of return of spontaneous circulation will happen with immediate efforts on scene and those chances decrease once high quality CPR is compromised (usually during patient movement and transport)

The Future

The future is exciting because what we have been doing is working.  The survival rates are going up and the chance that someone will leave the hospital with no neurological deficit is now a realistic goal.

More community stakeholders will be encouraged to get involved and this act of council and their commitment will shine a light on the importance of this.  Some future ways to get involved will be donating AEDs and supplies, setting up training classes for your workplace or organizations to proactive efforts like exercise and health conscious dieting groups.

I want to thank council for their commitment and designating Brigantine as a Heartsafe Community

I also want to thank the Late Chief Holl for his commitment, dedication and professionalism especially in the realm of EMS and personally as a mentor.  We would not have achieved this without him.