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Prompt cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillation can improve survival from cardiac arrest. Victims of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest need to be within 100 meters of an automated external defibrillator (AED) for defibrillation to occur promptly. It makes sense to put AEDs close to where most out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur, but this is not where most are placed.
Researchers used historical data to identify all cardiac arrests within the city limits of Toronto from 2005 to 2010. The average distance between an event and an AED was 281 m in the entire city, 129 m within the downtown core, and 319 m outside downtown. Overall, only 23% of arrests occurred within 100 m of an AED; the percentage of such arrests was three times higher w…