CAVENDISH — Chris Robinson is 55-years-old, retired and in good health.
Despite these factors, the Cavendish resident and his wife, Stephanie Scharf, recently purchased an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED), a device used to restart a person's heart following cardiac arrest.
"Living in the country, in the rural lifestyle, you've got to recognize that you're not living beside the hospital, you don't have the same access to ambulance or hospital services as somebody who lives in town," said Robinson.
"But we're realizing that while we can trust the system — at the same time we can plan to manage the risk and that's what we've done by buying our own AED," Robinson said.
Once a rarity anywhere but in hospitals and ambulances, AED technology has advanced considerably in recent years.
The devices are now roughly the size of a shoebox and generally cost between $1,500 and $2,000, making them mobile and cheap enough that they are starting to become permanent fixtures wherever people gather.
Robinson and Scharf became interested in AEDs after watching a CBC program in 2013 called "Shock to the System."
After seeing that show, the couple had a 'what if?' discussion about their chances of surviving a heart attack at home.
They estimated that the nearest AED was about seven minutes away by fire truck, in optimal conditions.
The Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation says that if a heart is stopped for more than five minutes without receiving a shock from an AED, the chance of resuscitation or brain damage.
Doing the math, they decided to take fate into their own hands and purchase an AED.
They've also made it available to anyone who wants it, announcing to the community that it is there should the need arise.
They've also put a 'AED inside' sticker on their window to let people know.
"I'm not trying to advocate that everybody needs one...but I think that every Islander, particularly those who live more than seven to 10 kilometres away from the nearest volunteer fire station or ambulance depot, they should know where to access the nearest AED," he said.
The Heart and Stroke Foundation has been pushing to make AEDs more widely available in Canada for years.
Reached Tuesday, Mike Hoffman, resuscitation manager for the foundation, said he'd never come across a story like this before, but praised the Canvendish couple for their initiative.
However, he did wonder at the practicality of having the device in a home where it might be locked away.
In terms of legality, he said that Canada's laws protect good Samaritans from liability when using an AED to try to save a life, so he saw no reason for someone not to follow the couple's example.
