Downtown Ottawa park gets public outdoor defibrillator

St. Luke's Park in downtown Ottawa now has a public, outdoor automatic external defibrillator (AED).

Sudden cardiac arrest, or when someone's heart suddenly stops beating, can happen at any time from a known or unknown underlying condition, said Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndrome (SADS) Foundation co-founder and director Kate Husband at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday.

Her foundation donated the AED, which will be in a climate-controlled box on the fieldhouse of the park between Frank, Elgin and Cartier streets and Gladstone Avenue.

Husband said the park, which has popular tennis and basketball courts, is an ideal place for an emergency tool that can shock a heart's rhythm back to normal.

"Many [of our] families carry an AED with them when they take their kids to their soccer games and their hockey games because they're not sure there will be one on site," she said, referring to the organization's support work.

She didn't share firm plans for more similar donations when asked, saying it's always possible if more partnerships come together.

Ottawa said it has hundreds of AEDs around the city, including in emergency vehicles, and encourages non-city organizations to register with paramedics so 911 dispatchers can find the nearest devices.

The city's paramedic service said the AED in St. Luke's Park is one of the city's first outdoor public ones.

Katrysha Gellis with Save Station, a supply company that helps manage the placement of new AEDs, said urged people to think instinctively that someone collapsing could be a case of cardiac failure and to consider using an AED.

Other immediate steps are to assess the person in trouble, call 911 and start CPR.