Thousands of automated external defibrillators on LI

Automated external defibrillators, the portable devices that can shock a heart out of cardiac arrest, began showing up on ambulances in the mid-1990s. Now there are thousands of them across Long Island in schools and other public buildings as well as athletic facilities.

WHERE THEY ARE FOUND.

State law requires them in schools and state-owned buildings, health clubs with 500 or more members and places of assembly with a capacity of 1,000 or more people. They are also placed in police cars and on airliners.

HOW THEY WORK. They stop cardiac arrest, when the electrical current controlling the heart short-circuits and the organ quivers instead of pumps. The defibrillator resets the electrical pattern. "They are very, very simple to use," said Dr. David Slotwiner of the cardiology department at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Medical Center. "There is a computer and two sticky patches that connect to it with wires and you put one on the front of the chest and one to the side of the heart and you push the button . . .

If it thinks there is an abnormal heart rhythm, it will say that it's charging and is going to give a shock."

REQUIRED TRAINING.State law says no one may operate an AED without first completing a training course approved by a nationally recognized organization. Matthew Crimmins, director of health and safety for the American Red Cross in Nassau, said that since newer machines also talk the user through conducting CPR if the shock doesn't revive the patient, an hour of AED training has now been incorporated into the seven-hour CPR class.

THEIR COST. $900-$1,800

LIFESAVERS. "We see on average four or five people a year whose lives are saved by these devices," Slotwiner said.