Sequim Gazette staff

The next thrift store item you buy could save a life.

 

Members from the Sequim Dungeness Hospital Guild presented Clallam County Fire District 3 representatives with a check for $20,160 to purchase 12 new Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs); the presentation was at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Sequim on Dec. 12.

 

The donation gives the fire district portable heart defibrillators in fire engines as well as EMT vehicles.

 

“We’ve had two saves in the field (using AEDs) in the last month,” Capt. Bryan Swanberg said.

 

The guild makes this sizable donation an annual event that coincides with its volunteer luncheon. Last year, the hospital guild donation helped purchase four i-STAT systems, portable machines that instantly analyze blood in an emergency setting and give results in minutes.

 

Paramedics can test for a recent heart attack through the blood and test patients with shortness of breath for congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other ailments.

 

The fire district becomes the first in its kind in Washington with these devices. Swanberg said they don’t plan to use them on every patient.

 

Funds came from the Sequim-Dungeness Hospital Guild Thrift Shop, 204 W. Bell St. The guild has donated more than $600,000 since 1982 to the fire district.

 

Each December, the guild gives to the district and in May to Olympic Medical Center and Dungeness Valley Health and Wellness Clinic.

 

The thrift store is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 11 a.m.-3 p.m. the first and third Saturday of each month. For more information, call 683-7044.

 

Reach Clallam County Fire District 3, 323 N. Fifth Ave., Sequim, at 683-4242.