Crescent-Odell area gets heart devices.

Byline: Tim Christie The Register-Guard

Seconds count when heart attacks happen.

Brain damage can occur within four to six minutes after a heart attack, said Bill Gibbs, an emergency medical technician and retired rural fire chief.

If someone performs cardiopulmonary resuscitation, that buys another five minutes.

Unless electric shock is applied to the heart within 10 minutes to restore normal heart rhythm, all bets are off.

Those seconds and minutes are especially critical in the Crescent-Odell Lakes Rural Fire Protection District, where the nearest hospital is 65 miles away in Bend, and where 20 volunteers are charged with putting out fires and providing emergency medical care for a population that can exceed 5,000 during the busy summer season.

So the fire district decided to buy some time for heart attack victims by installing automated external defibrillators Thursday at five public locations around the resort area high in the Oregon Cascades, 75 miles southeast of Eugene.

Volunteers such as Gibbs respond as quickly as they can to calls, but it might take him two or three minutes to get from his house to the station, two or three minutes to leave the station, then another 10 or 15 minutes to get to his destination.

"We're 20 to 25 minutes if someone has gone down," he said. "We don't save a hell of a lot of people when they have ... cardiac arrest."

The Philips HeartStart FRx defibrillators were placed at Shelter Cove Resort, Odell Lake Lodge and Resort, Crescent Lake Resort and Crescent Creek Cottages, and the Crescent Lake post office.

Staff at each location have been trained in using the units.

Defibrillators are carried on three of the fire department's trucks as well.

Each unit weighs about 3 1/2 pounds and is the size of a large dictionary.

They are designed to be idiot-proof: Users are guided by voice prompts through the necessary steps to save a life, Gibbs said.

Only about 100 people live full-time in the Crescent-Odell Lakes area, but those numbers swell to 50 times that during busy times, Gibbs said.

The fire district raised $8,500 from the community, and from Air Life of Oregon, Midstate Electric Co-Op, Walker Rim Riders Snowmobile Club and its own Volunteer Response Team.

The district kicked in $1,500 of its own funds, Gibbs said.

As more money comes in, the district plans to buy additional defibrillators for the 17 campgrounds in the area.

While these types of defibrillators are turning up in airports, casinos, restaurants and other urban settings, Gibbs said he's not aware of any other rural fire districts in Oregon that have installed them around the community.

"If we're not the first, we're damned near the first," he said.

Teri Van Wagner of the Oregon Fire Chiefs Association said she's not aware of similar projects in rural areas.

And Chris Benson, emergency medical services coordinator for Lane County Fire District 1 in Veneta and present of the Oregon Fire Medical Administrators Association, said he's not heard of other rural districts doing what Crescent-Odell is doing.

Department officials discussed the potential risk of theft or vandalism to the units, but decided to take that chance, Gibbs said.

"We feel, morally, we've got to do it and make it public-access rather than tie them up and hide them," he said.