Everdrone extends life-saving drone support to cardiac victims

Gothenburg-based startup Everdrone recently announced that it would expand its First on Scene Solutions activity, allowing it to send more automated external defibrillators to cardiac victims using drones. These drones will also further support first responders across Västra Götaland County.

The startup’s technology made headlines after one of its drones helped save a 71-year-old man suffering a cardiac arrest outdoors. It has since continued to provide quick aid to victims across the region.

Their cooperation with the Västra Götaland County administrative council began in 2020. The council has since approved further financial expansion into 2023.

“Our work together has been thoroughly rewarding, and now we can develop the functionalities even more,” Västra Götaland innovative platform manager Magnus Kristiansson said in an announcement.

The collaboration aims to solidify drone assistance in first-response situations on a “more permanent basis” in the future.

Saving lives seconds at a time

The startup’s drone made history last year for being the first to assist in a life-saving first aid response. In early December, a man from Trollhättan, Sweden, was found collapsed without a pulse by two passersby who immediately called emergency services for assistance.

A drone flew to the scene minutes later, carrying a defibrillator with it. One of the passersby, a doctor, used the defibrillator to save the man’s life.

“It’s important to understand that there’s a chain of events saving the person’s life, and the drone is a very critical part of how that system works,” chief executive Mats Sällström said after the incident.

Heart attacks are still a major cause of death in developed countries, with a mortality rate of 90 percent in the rare cases of an out-of-hospital attack. It is established that every minute counts in the first responses.

Sweden’s largest medical university, the Karolinska Institutet, partnered with the Västra Götaland region, Everdrone and Sweden’s national emergency operator to study the technology’s effectiveness.

In their four-month study, the drones succeeded in delivering AEDs on time in 11 out of 12 dispatches, arriving before an ambulance in seven of those same cases.