The best medicine for a person who goes into sudden cardiac arrest is an electric shock. That jolt temporarily stops the heart, along with its rapid or erratic beat. When the heart starts itself up again, it can revert to its normal rhythm and resume pumping blood to the brain and the rest of the body.
The sooner this happens, the better. When a patient is shocked within one minute of collapse, the chance of survival is nearly 90 percent. But if it takes 10 minutes to administer a shock, the odds or survival fall below 5 percent.
A new study suggests that a drone can deliver an AED more quickly than an ambulance.
