Friends of Heart gives city of Brownsville 5 life-saving AEDs

BROWNSVILLE, Tenn. — When the Brownsville hospital closed in 2014, the community faced new problems when dealing with a health crisis.

“With the hospital closing over the past few years, we had to do CPR quite often until an ambulance could actually get back from Jackson,” Brownsville Police Chief Barry Diebold said.

Now, thanks to the Friends of Heart fund with West Tennessee Healthcare, the city has received five automated external defibrillators, or AEDs.

The devices are for those in cardiac arrest.

“Without having a hospital in our community since 2014, we’ve been looking at ways to think outside the box and act outside the box to improve the quality of life, and extend life here in Brownsville and Haywood County,” Brownsville Mayor William Rawls said.

The devices help guide the user through the process. Without them, constant CPR can be difficult.

“CPR, we want everybody to be trained in that. But the act of physically doing CPR is exhausting,” said Rosy Roberts, executive director of the Friends of Heart fund.

Rural communities like Brownsville need the AEDs to raise the chances of someone surviving a heart attack.

“We’re going to take four of the five that were given to us today, through a joint effort between the city and the Friends of Heart, to our police department. We’re going to put one on every shift, so that every supervisor has one in his or her vehicle,” Rawls said.

“Today is just one step. It’s not the final answer — it’s one step towards moving forward to having a better, safer community,” Rawls said.

The Friends of Heart fund has distributed over 20 AEDs this year and over 60 in total across West Tennessee.