December 26th
An Irish cardiologist who developed a life-saving portable defibrillator. He found that 60% of men (up to middle age) who died of a heart attack occurred within the first hour, and 90% of them suffered from ventricular fibrillation. To begin treatment as early as possible, Pantridge installed a portable defibrillator in an ambulance in 1965. It achieved a long-term patient survival rate of 50%. This preclinical coronary treatment program was quickly adopted in the United States and was used in 1972 when President Lyndon Johnson had a heart attack during his visit to Virginia. The first automatic external defibrillator (AED) was introduced to the market in 1979. The British government was lagging behind, but in 1990 funded all front-line ambulance defibrillators in the UK. Died 26 Dec 2004 at age 88 (born 3 Oct 1916).
