In April 2026, Suzhou DRUTEK installed automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in the office area and on the production floor, and on 27 April ran first-aid training for employees. The day was tight: a fire evacuation drill in the morning, first-aid theory and practice in the afternoon. Put together, both make the same point — an accident does not give notice, and the only thing that saves a life is the first response of the people standing there.
After cardiac arrest, brain tissue begins to suffer irreversible damage within four to six minutes. Survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in China has long sat at around 1%, and every minute of delay before defibrillation cuts the survival rate by roughly a further 7–10%. In everyday terms: run from the workshop to the gate, dial 120, wait for the vehicle, get through the estate, find the floor — that chain usually takes more than ten minutes.
So the logic of putting an AED in a public place or a factory is not "specialist equipment" but "moving the first shock ahead of the arrival of professional help". That is why the training repeats one instruction: call 120 first and send someone for the AED at the same time — do not let either wait for the other.
Many people misunderstand AEDs, imagining a "shock machine" they might misuse. The reality is the opposite:
| Stage | Key action | Common mistake |
|---|---|---|
| Assess | No response to shoulder tap and shout, no normal breathing: call for help and dial 120 immediately | Wasting time feeling for a pulse or pinching the philtrum |
| Compress | Depth 5–6 cm, rate 100–120 per minute, 30:2 compression to ventilation | Too shallow, too long a pause, afraid to press hard |
| Defibrillate | Switch on, apply pads (upper right chest and left mid-axillary line), clear everyone, deliver the shock on prompt | Wrong pad position, someone still touching the patient during discharge |
| Rotate | Change the compressor every two minutes until professional help arrives | One person pushing on alone as quality falls away |
The practical session used a manikin with feedback, showing compression depth and rate in real time. Once people actually got their hands on it, most discovered their own problems: elbows not locked, pushing from the arms instead of using body weight; letting up halfway so recoil is incomplete; counting the beat faster and faster. None of this is self-diagnosable without practice, and in a real resuscitation it decides whether the compressions work at all.
The training also covered management of airway obstruction and initial handling of the common workshop injuries. None of it is needed most days — but when it is needed, every second counts.
An AED is not finished business once it is on the wall. Its effectiveness depends on two consumables, the battery and the electrode pads, both of which expire; once they do, the device self-test alarms and it cannot be used. The company therefore set up a management routine alongside the installation:
The best outcome in safety is that it is never needed. And precisely because it may never be needed, it matters all the more that when the moment comes the device is within reach — and someone knows how to use it.
For a manufacturing company, on-time delivery and stable quality are hard measures. Making sure that everyone who works on the line knows that someone will respond if something happens is another baseline that should not be overlooked.
