What I wanted to talk about today is this life-saving device called an Automated External Defibrillator. It has become the number one way to resuscitate a person who has suffered an unwitnessed cardiac arrest by emergency medical services and is still in persistent ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia. Many people played an important role in creating this device to become more efficient, smaller, and easier to use for the general public. Here are just a few who played a role in the creation of this device: Claude Beck, James Rand, Paul Zoll and Frank Pantridge. The first use of a defibrillator on a patient dates back to 1947 on a 14-year-old boy. Claude Beck was performing open chest surgery when the boy suffered a fibrillation. Beck manually massaged his heart for 45 minutes until the defibrillator arrived. The defibrillator he used during the operation was made by James Rand and had silver paddles the size of a large teaspoon. In 1956, Paul Zoll successfully performed the first external defibrillation with a more powerful defibrillator. A major breakthrough in emergency medicine occurred in 1965. At the time, the majority of coronary deaths occurred outside of the hospital setting because defibrillators required a primary power source and were only available in hospitals, making them virtually useless for saving lives outside of a hospital. setting. Frank Pantridge, often called the father of emergency medicine, made the first portable defibrillator in 1965. This device was powered by a car battery and weighed approximately 70 kg (155 lb). By 1968, he was able to create a defibrillator that was safer to use and weighed only 3 kg (6–7 lb). It has been argued that there is a possibility of misuse of the device if given to a middle of paper...... AED and Defibrillation: AED - AEDGRANT.COM ~ FREE GRANTMONEY FOR AED! !! ~ AED grant for individuals and organizations. (February 13, 2003). History of AEDs and Defibrillation: AED - AEDGRANT.COM ~ FREE AED GRANT!!! ~ AED grant for individuals and organizations. Retrieved January 20, 2014, from http://www.aedgrant.com/aed-history.htmNCBI. (2005, April 2). Frank Pantridge. Frank Pantridge. Accessed January 20, 2014, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC555899/Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. (December 2, 2011). What is an automated external defibrillator?. -NHLBI, NIH. Accessed January 20, 2014, from http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/aed/Virtual Museum EMS History. (August 11, 2011). Professor Frank Pantridge. Accessed January 20, 2014 from http://www.emsmuseum.org/virtual-museum/history/articles/399784-Professor-Frank-Pantridge