Brent Dierking, director of business development for Blount EMS (left), and Tammy Sherbert, operations manager for Blount EMS, present county administrator Ralph Mitchell with an automatic external defibrillator (AED) for use at the county courthouse. The device is used to resuscitate victims following cardiac arrest or severe heart attack. Victims’ chance of survival can go as high as 30 percent if an AED is used within eight minutes of a cardiac event. If not used, the survival rates hovers around 4 percent.

“Hundreds of citizens are in and out of the courthouse every week. It only makes sense that this would be an ideal location for an AED. We are extremely appreciative of the generosity of Blount EMS in providing this life-saving device and training our personnel to use it,” Mitchell said.

Blount EMS is a subsidiary of NorthStar EMS, which is Alabama’s largest private provider of EMS medical care and ambulance services, serving Blount County since 1995.