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Sweden: Autonomous drone saves human life

While we are more familiar with drones from crisis regions of the world as bringers of doom and remote-controlled killing machines, a specimen in Sweden has now become a lifesaver. A small flying object from the startup Everdrone has delivered a defibrillator needed for resuscitation in the Scandinavian country.

Life saver of the future?

Help came at the very last second for a 71-year-old man from the idyllic town of Trollhättan in Sweden. Not in the form of an ambulance, however, but a drone from the startup Everdrone. The drone delivered a life-saving defibrillator as fast airmail. This all happened in December of last year. While the man in question was clearing his driveway of winter snow, he suddenly got a stabbing pain in his chest and slumped. The subsequent diagnosis: cardiac arrest. But as luck would have it, a nearby doctor noticed the man’s life-threatening condition and immediately began resuscitation. The doctor urged another person to call 911.

This person, in turn, not only ordered an ambulance and paramedics. On top of that, the control center notified Everdrone. The company responded quickly and sent a drone with appropriate medical features to the scene. In the end, the flying object was on the scene far faster than the ambulance. It took the drone just three minutes to drop off the life-saving delivery. Thanks to the defibrillator, the first-aid doctor was able to save the 71-year-old’s life. After the man was resuscitated, he was able to recover at the local hospital.

A startup revolutionizes 911

Everdrone began operations in Sweden last year. In the process, the startup is working with the national emergency services as part of a close network. Before the small company was trusted with responsibility, it naturally had to prove its functionality. For this purpose, a test lasting several months was conducted to see how reliably and, above all, quickly the drones could arrive at the scene of the incident. As it turned out, in seven out of twelve cases the small flying objects arrived at the emergency before the ambulance. However, the drones were not equipped with medical features such as a defibrillator as part of this test. One wanted to examine only whether the use is practicable, because one is at the scene at the same time or even faster.

The new hope for sparsely populated places

Because Sweden has many sparsely populated localities, classic ambulances can often arrive too late. However, the example from Trollhättan described above makes it clear that timely intervention is usually the difference between life and death. According to a study by Everdrone, this is particularly the case in cardiac arrests. This makes it all the more important for rescue to arrive on the scene as quickly as possible. Ambulances cannot ensure this – drones, on the other hand, can.

A new milestone in medicine

Everdrone can now claim to be a true medical pioneer. After all, the company helped save the life of a person in cardiac arrest for the first time ever. But despite the great news, those in charge at Everdrone know that this is just the beginning. There are still many fine points to be improved and optimized in order to be able to perform more successful life-saving operations. Mats Sällström, CEO of Everdrone, told tech magazine Nyteknik, for example:

“We are currently working intensively on how the emergency call center can help the caller and ensure that the delivered defibrillator is used.”

It’s not just communications that are likely to see some changes. The technical features of the drones will also have to be improved sooner or later. For example, Everdrone’s little flying helpers can currently fly only 6 km. Rain, wind and other bad weather conditions also still pose major problems for the drones.

Simon Lüthje

I am co-founder of this blog and am very interested in everything that has to do with technology, but I also like to play games. I was born in Hamburg, but now I live in Bad Segeberg.

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While we are more familiar with drones from crisis regions of the world as bringers of doom and remote-controlled killing machines, a specimen in Sweden has now become a lifesaver. A small flying object from the startup Everdrone has delivered a defibrillator needed for resuscitation in the Scandinavian country. Life saver of the future? Help … (Weiterlesen...)

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