The Marseilles Fire Department now owns a mechanical aid to revive people whose hearts have stopped. Fire Chief Dave Parrott says the device made under the name LUCAS CPR presses on the chest so people don’t have to. The device figures out how hard, how far, and how often to press, and it doesn’t get tired.
The mechanical CPR pump can be used with or without a defibrillator which works by sending electrical pulses into the chest. The fire department could use it on a fire fighter or a member of the public who needs it before an ambulance arrives.
LUCAS stands for Lund University Cardiopulmonary Assisted System. A Norwegian inventor came up with the idea after witnessing how hard it was for paramedics to provide consistent CPR in a moving ambulance. Willy Vistung found others interested in the idea at the Swedish University’s hospital in 1995 and they began development and testing.