Grant to pay $136K for heart monitors

Peachtree City has won a $136,000 grant to purchase four new cardiac monitors for its four ambulances.

In doing so, the city can wipe some $38,000 it had planned to spend each of the next four years on financing the equipment.

The city will need to chip in $15,200 this year, but that may be achieved by getting trade-in value for its current cardiac monitors, said Assistant Fire Chief Joe O’Conor.

Otherwise, the fire department will absorb the cost from its budget for the current year.

The city expects to get at least a 10-year service life from each device, which not only monitor a patient’s heart rhythm and other vital signs, but can also administer a shock if necessary to restore a normal heartbeat.

The Lifepak cardiac monitors the city is purchasing are durable, meet the city’s needs “to the greatest degree” and also are interchangeable with the city-owned automatic external defibrillators that are located in some city buildings and patrol cars, O’Conor said.

Councilwoman Kim Learnard thanked the fire department for what she called “an amazing grant.”