MASON CITY, IA - Deputy Fire Chief Dave Johnson says, about five thousand medical calls come through the Mason City Ambulance service a year."We average about 15 or 16 cardiac arrests a year."
When cardiac arrest threatens someone's life, new American Heart Association Standards show CPR is the most important thing you can do to save that person.
But when doing manual CPR you need to do 100 compressions a minute, two inches deep and crews say it’s a lot of work. They have to switch every two minutes.
But new technology is making that job much easier. It’s an automatic CPR machine.
"It doesn't require a person standing on their tippy toes doing chest compression going down the road at 70 miles per hour."
The department already has one machine, but this second one is a company’s demo, and it’s 50% off. Bringing the price tag to just over eight thousand dollars.
It's paid for by the Cerro Gordo County Independent Insurance Agents, who say they are always looking for a way to give back to the community.
Having two machines will help more people since emergency crews cover an area from Mason City to Thornton.
"That's a long time getting from point A to point B and if you have a machine that's doing picture perfect CPR on the way, that's what you need."
Johnson says the auto CPR machine costs normally $15 thousand. But he hopes one day it'll be a more common tool in north Iowa ambulances.
