BC Ferries Installs AEDs at Minor Terminals

BC Ferries just announced that the company has installed an additional 24 Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) at minor terminals for customers to use in the event of a medical emergency.

Today, heart disease and stroke take one life every seven minutes. February is the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s ‘Heart Month’, a key time to reach millions of Canadians and alert them to the risks of heart disease and stroke. The Heart and Stroke Foundation has supplied BC Ferries with the signage and cabinets for this potentially life-saving equipment through the BC Public Access to Defibrillation Program (BC PAD).

With the advent of increasingly easy to use AEDs, BC Ferries saw an opportunity to improve the possibility of treating a customer or employee at remote locations in a timely manner. Training is not required to use the AEDs that BC Ferries has installed at the minor terminals as the devices are fully automated. The company has registered the locations of all the devices with the BC PAD AED registry so that in the event of a 9-1-1call from a site with an AED, the dispatcher will be able to direct the caller to the location of the equipment.

“BC Ferries has been pleased to work with the Heart and Stroke Foundation over the past year to implement an enhanced level of access to the devices for the public,” said Corrine Storey, BC Ferries’ vice president of customer services. “The safety of our customers and our employees is a top priority at BC Ferries and with 20 million people travelling throughout our system each year, this is another important way we are striving to become a world-class safety organization.”

“Without defibrillation and CPR, the chance of survival from sudden cardiac arrest decreases by seven to 10 per cent for each minute that passes,” said Adrienne Bakker, CEO, Heart and Stroke Foundation, BC & Yukon. “It’s wonderful to see employers like BC Ferries take the initiative to ensure increased safety for their customers and employees by placing AEDs in their terminals.”

Now, 34 of BC Ferries’ 47 terminal locations are equipped with AEDs. The major terminals (Tsawwassen, Swartz Bay, Horseshoe Bay, Departure Bay, Duke Point, and Langdale) as well as the vessels have had AEDs available for use by BC Ferries’ Occupational First Aid Attendants for a number of years. The AEDs for Denman Island East, Denman Island West and Hornby Island terminals will be installed later this year due to construction on the waiting rooms, which will bring the number of terminal locations up to 37. BC Ferries was not able to install the equipment at some minor terminals that do not have a secure waiting room.