More than 350,000 people in the United States suffer cardiac arrest each year, and fewer than 10 per cent survive, largely because help arrives too late. A Duke Health-led clinical trial, described as the first of its kind in the country, is testing whether autonomous drones can close that fatal gap by delivering automated external defibrillators to bystanders during real 911 calls.
Under the protocol, led by principal investigator Monique Starks of the Duke University School of Medicine, when a cardiac arrest call reaches dispatchers in Clemmons, North Carolina, a drone launches immediately while emergency medical services respond as usual. The aircraft flies autonomously at 200 feet, descends to 100 feet over the scene and winches the defibrillator to the ground, where the dispatcher talks the bystander through using it. James City County, Virginia, also takes part.
The stakes are measured in minutes: defibrillation within two to three minutes of collapse can lift survival to around 70 per cent, yet ambulances often take eight to ten minutes to arrive. Coordinated through the Duke Clinical Research Institute with support from the American Heart Association, the study aims to deliver an AED in under five minutes for more than half of the study area's population, laying groundwork for a larger multi-centre randomised trial.