By Bob Vlach
Woodford Sun Staff
The Woodford County Library has purchased Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) for its Versailles and Midway branches, Executive Director Stacy Thurman told the Sun. The paperwork for those purchases was on Thurman’s desk on Friday, July 17, when an actor with Bluegrass Mystery Theatre set to perform had a medical emergency, she said.
Thurman said she has met with Versailles resident Matt Turner, who works with the American Heart Association (AHA), about training library staff so they are comfortable using the AEDs.
He informed her that the AHA works with public organizations to become Heart Safe, and he’d like to work with the library to become Kentucky’s first Heart Safe Library, she said. That would result in a cardiac emergency response plan and hands-only CPR training for all staff, she added.
Thurman said last month’s medical emergency when library board member Molly Krumm helped save a life using CPR “lit a fire under me to make sure that we were ready if and when it happens again.”
Even without a plan for responding to an emergency, she lauded Krumm, first responders and her staff for how they responded to the medical emergency.