Time is critical for victims of Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA). For every minute that defibrillation is delayed, the chances of surviving are reduced by approximately 10%. Survival chances drop particularly fast in the first five minutes.
95% of those who experience SCA die because they do not receive life-saving defibrillation within four to six minutes, before brain and permanent death begin to occur.
Since rapid time to defibrillation is so critical, increasing the number of publicly accessible AEDs and arming all first responders with AEDs offers victims a real chance to survive an otherwise lethal event.
