When Albany schools reopen next week, they'll feature a new piece of equipment: automated external defibrillators.
Maintenance crews installed at least one defibrillator, or AED, in each Albany school over the winter break. South Albany and West Albany high schools each will have two, because of the size of their campuses and the greater likelihood of after-hours use.
Oregon lawmakers decided in a 2010 special session to require at least one of the devices, which deliver an electric shock to stimulate heart rhythm, at each public school campus. Schools had until Jan. 1, 2015, to comply.
Greg Erthal, a maintenance carpenter for the Albany district, worked just before Christmas to install the brackets for each AED and made sure the units themselves were ready to go inside them.
The units are portable and carry their own battery charge so they can be taken anywhere in the building, he said. "They're quick and ready to go."
Russell Allen, the school district's director of business, and Doug Pigman, director of facilities, briefed members of the Albany school board on the project at their Dec. 15 meeting.
A formal board vote is expected in January to accept the new policies outlining the use and storage requirements for the new defibrillators.
A handful of Albany schools already had an AED because parent-teacher groups had donated them or because, in at least one instance in recent years, a student with a health issue needed to have access.
Allen said the district purchased 15 additional units to make sure all the other schools were covered, spending a little less than $1,000 per unit. Money is coming from the general fund.
The units themselves should be good for a long time, but the batteries will have to be replaced about every five years, Pigman said.
Suggested language in the proposed policy calls for maintenance, inspection and service every six months.
The policy also states that people who use the AED must first have had training in its use and have successfully completed a course in cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
However, Allen said, the units will be available to the general public during after-hours school use, and anyone who needed to use one in a medical emergency likely would fall under Oregon's"Good Samaritan" law. That protects people without medical training from lawsuits if they are trying to provide reasonable assistance in an emergency.
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