Automated external defibrillator use by police responders: where do we go from here?

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) remains a major public health problem. More than 250 000 deaths in the United States are attributed to SCD annually, and recent statistics demonstrate that in 1999, there were 341 780 cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, accounting for 47% of all cardiac-related deaths.1 Despite improvements in emergency systems across the country and advances in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, the proportion of SCDs has increased 12% over the past decade,2 making the development of better therapeutic approaches for of out-of-hospital arrest of primary concern.