Do You Know Where the Nearest AED Is?

In 2021, Sarah Katzenmaier collapsed in sudden cardiac arrest during the Thriller Parade in Lexington, Kentucky. A bystander, Charlotte Callan, started CPR. Katzenmaier survived.

Nearly five years later, LEX 18 News reports (October 6, 2026) that the two have joined a nonprofit called Cardiac Crusade to map the AEDs across Lexington. Volunteers use the PulsePoint AED app to log defibrillators they come across during everyday errands, and that information is shared with local 911 systems. The longer-term goal is for AED locations to be as easy to look up as anything else on your phone.

Why go to the trouble? Because an AED only helps if someone can find it. The report cites two figures: more than 350,000 people a year in the United States have a cardiac arrest outside a hospital, and the chance of survival drops by about 10 percent for every minute without a shock.

Three things to do this week

Find the AED in your building. If you have to ask around, so will everyone else in an emergency.

Check that it is ready. Look for the status indicator, and check the dates on the pads and battery.

Register it. Apps like PulsePoint AED let you add your device so that people nearby know it is there.

If your workplace does not have an AED at all, that is worth raising with whoever manages the building.

Full Code CPR teaches American Heart Association CPR and AED classes on-site for teams across the Portland metro area. Request a group quote and we will email your pricing.

Source: LEX 18 News, “Cardiac arrest survivor and friend who saved her join forces to map AED locations across Lexington,” October 6, 2026.