Acting Administrator Sturgell Considering Policy Change

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association is hopeful the Federal Aviation Administration will allow devices used to help heart attack victims in air traffic facilities, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.

Defibrillators can restore a heartbeat by applying a brief electric shock to a heart attack victim.

Acting FAA Administrator Robert Sturgell is considering changing the policy, according to FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory.

"No final decision has been made," Cory said Monday. "We are still reviewing the matter. What we are doing right now is trying to determine the cost to buy and install the defibrillators, and train personnel, for all the air traffic facilities, and we're also looking at liability issues."

Management at the Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center asked to move a portable defibrillator from a nearby medical trailer into the facility two months ago, and was denied due to a policy not allowing it, according to NATCA representative Melissa Ott.

A medical trailer near the site is closed on nights and weekends, and is only open sporadically during the week. "If someone has a heart attack while the trailer is open, time would be lost retrieving the device," the Journal quotes Ott as saying.

FAA officials said there is no time frame for the agency to complete its research.

NATCA has pushed to have defibrillators in traffic control centers since controller John Sanfelippo died of a heart attack at a center in Houston in 2005.

The controller's union openly opposed Sturgell's nomination as the Administrator on October 23.

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.natca.org