First aid volunteer has his own life-saving equipment for emergencies
BUTTERWORTH: A first aid volunteer decided that to truly be able to save the life of someone whose heart suddenly stopped, he needed to invest in an automated external defibrillator (AED).
Six months after buying an AED for RM7,000, he saved someone’s life with it.
Mechanic Augustine Wong, 28, has been a member of the Malaysian Red Crescent Society since 2016 and chose to have his own AED after experiencing many emergencies as a first responder.
At about 9pm on Aug 20, he saw a text in a messaging group he was in called “GoodSam”.
Someone had collapsed at a badminton court near his house in Machang Bubuk due to sudden cardiac arrest (SCA).
Without a moment to lose, Wong rushed there on his motorcycle with his AED.
“There were already people taking turns to perform CPR on the victim when I arrived.
“I took over, used the AED on the victim and performed CPR for two minutes, after which the victim finally started to breathe again,” he said.
The 58-year-old victim was recently discharged from the hospital and met Wong, gifting him with a fruit basket and an angpow as a token of gratitude.
An SCA differs from a heart attack in that when it happens, the heart suddenly stops to the point that there is no pulse, and the victim might be thought of as having died.
But it is possible to get the victim’s heart going again in those precious first few minutes.
However, medical statistics show that reviving an SCA victim with CPR alone has only a 3% to 5% success rate, while CPR together with the use of an AED (which sends electric shocks to the victim’s heart) has a 40% to 70% success rate.
Wong said his AED is the best investment he has made so far as he believes in the value of being a fully prepared emergency first responder.
“It was my first time rescuing someone from the brink of death.
“I hope the authorities can help to place more publicly accessible AED machines for anyone to use in an emergency,” he said.
He also encouraged everyone to learn how to perform CPR and use an AED so that they can help save lives.
