Go into Cardiac Arrest? Here's How a Drone Could Save Your Life

You go into cardiac arrest. An automated external defibrillator arrives. A bystander uses it and saves your life.

But wait: How did it get there so quickly?

That would be via a drone, which saved approximately 16 minutes compared to an ambulance in out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, based on a new study published in JAMA. While the study didn't examine real-life circumstances, it simulated past incidences to compare speed.

The survival rate of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the U.S. is glaringly small – just 8 to 10 percent of people – with time to defibrillation the key component in boosting someone's chances. If you're shocked within just a minute, you have a 90 percent chance of living, reports the Los Angeles Times.

"Ninety percent of people who collapse outside of a hospital don't make it. This is a crisis and it's time we do something different to address it," Dr. Clyde Yancy, a former American Heart Association president who didn't work on the study, told the Associated Press.

The Swedish Transportation Agency created the drone for the study, equipping it with an automated external defibrillator, a device that checks heart rhythm and can deliver a shock to attempt to bring back a normal rhythm. The drone was also outfitted with a GPS and high-definition camera with an autopilot software system. The craft resided at a fire station north of Stockholm and was sent on 18 remotely operated flights in October 2016 – all to locations where out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happened between 2006 and 2014, within 6.2 miles of the station.

Researchers examined the difference between the simulation and ambulance times found in the Swedish Registry for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, reports the Los Angeles Times.

By the numbers: The median flight distance was approximately two miles. Researchers recorded a 3-minute median time for the ambulance dispatch and 3-second median time from the dispatch to the drone launch. The drone arrived at a median 5 minutes and 21 seconds from the dispatch, compared to 22 minutes for the ambulance.

Limitations for the study included that the drones flew in good weather, and that there were just a small number of them flying short trips.

Still, given statistics, it's clear any kind of extra speed could be beneficial.

"Saving 16 minutes is likely to be clinically important. Nonetheless, further test flights, technological development, and evaluation of integration with dispatch centers and aviation administrators are needed," according to the study authors. "The outcomes of [out-of-hospital cardiac arrest] using the drone-delivered AED by bystanders vs resuscitation by [emergency medical services] should be studied."