FORD CITY MALL DEPLOYS LATEST LIFE-SAVING TECHNOLOGY TO TREAT VICTIMS OF SUDDEN CARDIAC ARREST
Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) to Help Increase the Survival Rate From One of the Country’s Leading Killers

CHICAGO, IL, October 24, 2001—Ford City Mall today announced that it has deployed automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) to treat victims of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), one of the country’s leading medical emergencies and causes of death. Ford City Mall is visited by over 8 million people each year and has approximately one thousand employees that work at the mall.

Ford City Mall is participating in an AED program through the University of Chicago. The devices are located throughout the mall and in mall patrol vehicles to allow for the timeliest response in the event of an emergency. Fifty mall security officers and management employees recently completed a training program to use the new devices. Urban Retail Properties Co., the management company of Ford City Mall, is in the process of deploying AEDs at the more than 60 regional and mixed-use shopping centers the company manages.

The Heartstream AED will be used to apply defibrillation therapy, or an electrical charge to the heart, to SCA victims. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), the U.S. survival rate from SCA is 5 percent, largely because life-saving defibrillation—the definitive treatment for SCA—does not reach victims in time. The deployment of AEDs will dramatically decrease the time it takes to reach victims.

"The American Heart Association has said that each minute from the time of attack until defibrillation reduces a victim’s chance of survival by 10 percent, making this essentially a race against time," said Jean Sheerin, Marketing Manager at Ford City Mall. "By equipping Ford City Mall with defibrillators we will be able to significantly cut the time it takes to treat victims. The Heartstream AED gives us a dependable, easy-to-use and low-maintenance device that will help save lives."

The Heartstream FR2 AED is a breakthrough in defibrillation technology that makes it practical for broad groups of emergency first responders (emergency medical technicians, fire-department personnel, police officers, security guards, flight attendants and other authorized first responders) to deliver time-critical defibrillation therapy to victims of SCA. The Heartstream AED is the only FDA-cleared AED with low-energy SMART Biphasic technology. It was designed specifically to make the implementation of early-response programs practical in communities, industrial settings, and other public and private facilities.