Defibrillator Drones Aim to Respond in 911 Calls

By 2018, Flirtey drones could begin delivering defibrillators to help speed aid to victims of cardiac arrest. Credit: Andi Kilgore | Flirtey Inc. Delivery drones carrying defibrillators could begin swooping in to save American victims of cardiac arrest starting in 2018. A new partnership between a delivery drone startup and an emergency medical services provider aims to dispatch defibrillator drones ahead of ambulances in response to 911 calls made in northern Nevada. Using drones to deliver life-saving automatic external defibrillators for restarting victims' hearts could have a huge impact. Cardiac arrest represents the leading cause of natural death in the United States with more than 350,000 out-of-hospital cases each year--and the odds of survival drop by about 10 percent for every minute that goes by in cardiac arrest cases. Having defibrillator drones on call could go a long way toward improving survival rates for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests that hovered around ...