TPS Hopes To Put Life-Saving Tool In Every School

Tulsa Public Schools plans to buy 110 new defibrillators so that all schools will have at least one.

Someone at every school is already trained to use one, and in high schools, even the students will get some training.

The automatic defibrillators are potential life savers, but access is the key.

There's a four-minute window when it's most effective, that's why TPS emergency manager Bob Roberts wanted to add to the 30 AED's the Tulsa school district has now.

"We've got some AED's right now, they're portable and used by athletics at football games, that kind of thing, but we want to have a hard mounted one in every building and every school, and in a lot of schools - the large elementary, middle schools, multiple floors, large student body - we'll have more than one," Roberts said.

Each unit costs about $1,200, and it comes with some training provided, which will be passed down through instructors at each school.

The timing works with new state-mandated CPR training for high school students. TPS already has several high schools where that training is well underway, and AED training is being added to it.

TPS Physical Ed. Director, Elizabeth Herbert said, "There is also an AED component with that training, so we will be training all students again with that training."

Roberts said the new AED's are almost foolproof, and the extra units will make sure that there's one within reach when schools are open and when sports teams are on the road.

“We want to make sure if the athletics department has an away game, they have one they can pick up and take with them," Roberts said.

The school board is voting to make the purchase, from there it's going to take some time to get them in and installed.

TPS has never had to use one on campus, but other suburban schools have where it saved a life.