MSU police officer Amos Ridenour shows one of the defibrillators now traveling in the trunks of patrol cars. MSU photo by Erin Raley.

No Montana State University police officer goes on patrol without a ready-bag that includes such essentials as rubber gloves, anti-diarrhea medication and wound dressings.

Add to that automated external defibrillators--those devices that can deliver a heart-saving jolt of electricity to someone having a heart attack.

The MSU Police now carry defibrillators in three patrol cars as part of a larger campus effort to provide public access to the life-saving machines. The device shocks the heart to restore rhythm in people experiencing cardiac arrest.

"The machines are easy to use," explained Colleen Hebert, the accident disability manager in MSU's Safety and Risk Management Office. "The key is knowing CPR."

Hebert heads a campus committee aimed at installing the defibrillators in all 33 university buildings and eight Agricultural Experiment Stations around the state. But at roughly $1,500 each, plus the cost of installation and maintenance, that goal is some ways off.

MSU's police chief Robert Putzke came forward with the idea of his office buying three of the units, called AEDs, and carrying them in marked patrol cars.

With his officers just minutes away from nearly every spot on campus, Putzke reasoned that having his staff equipped was the next best thing to broader public access to the devices. Everyone on his staff, including the parking enforcement officers, has been trained to use the defibrillators and to perform CPR.

"In the past 21 years in law enforcement, I've been the first responder to two heart attacks," Putzke said, adding that he has a bad track record for saving lives. Neither person lived.

"I have always wondered since AEDs became available if the outcome could have been different," he said. "I feel pretty strongly about having them."

Four other defibrillators can be found on campus, including one at the Student Health Service. But only the one owned by the Intramurals Program in the Health and Physical Education Complex is for public access, Hebert said.

Putzke plans to have another unit housed at the police station and, eventually, one in every police vehicle.

With heart disease the No. 1 killer in America, the devices are now appearing in hospital corridors, airports, shopping malls and other public places. Manufacturers have even designed defibrillators for home use.

"It's because they are easy to use and so successful," Hebert said.

written by Annette Trinity-Stevens and posted for Nov. 5, 2004