MORGAN — The Pooletown Fire Department recently received a grant that allowed it to provide defibrillators to the churches in its district, and on Wednesday night members of the department donated the first to Luther’s Lutheran Church and spent time demonstrating how to use it.

The idea to donate AEDs, or automated external defibrillators, to the local churches was brought to Pooletown Fire Chief Ryan Barkley by Wyatt Beck, the department’s medical response coordinator, after he spent time in his monthly continued education class for his EMS permit.

“They were talking about the studies that were done with AEDs placed within the community and it was helping with the survival rates of cardiac arrests. And I just thought because it’s so rural out here and it’s such a long response time that would be very beneficial. So just coming from class, I brought it to (Barkley). I didn’t know he would do anything with it,” said Beck.

Barkley took Beck’s idea, and sent an application to the Margaret C. Woodson Foundation for grant funding to place AEDs in the four churches that were in Pooletown’s fire district at the time. A fifth church, Antioch Baptist Church, has been added to the department’s service district since then.

AEDs are used to help people experiencing sudden cardiac arrest and are designed to be easy-to-use. The device that Pooletown firefighters demonstrated on Wednesday provided clear, audible instructions to users on how to help a person’s heart re-establish an effective rhythm after cardiac arrest

“This is not a foolproof lifesaver, it’s a very specific thing that it does, but if it is that situation and y’all have this here, it’s very beneficial. We’re all volunteers. Our fire station, the closest one, is about a mile away on Reeves Island (Road). I work Monday through Friday, so I can’t run some calls. The paramedics’ station is near Morgan Elementary School about six, seven miles away. So, you have to bear with us on our responses, because there’s not a whole lot of firemen in Pooletown. That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to do this,” said Barkley.

Luther’s Lutheran was the first to receive its defibrillator, and Barkley said that he is working to identify times where the department can meet with members of the other three churches in the district and teach them how to use the life-saving devices.

“The only thing I ask of y’all, this is like train the trainer. With your other members, you could have designated members that are part of a safety team so you can make sure enough people know about the AED, how it works, so if there is an emergency you can go ahead and apply it while we’re heading here,” said Barkley to the members of Luther’s Lutheran who were present on Wednesday.

Gary Bostian, treasurer at Luther’s Lutheran Church, said that church has not had any recent incidents that would have required an AED, but the congregation’s age range does lean towards the elderly side.

Barkley told the members of the congregation that the AEDs being donated to the church were the same ones that the county fire departments and EMS had recently changed to, so their devices were compatible with the church’s and firefighters could assist with technical questions or replacing parts.