In Sweden, a drone assists in the rescue of a cardiac arrest patient.

By Aryaman Bhatia, Science and tech editor, The Pawprint

A defibrillator was delivered by drone to a doctor who was assisting the man, who had become ill while shoveling snow outside his home in Trollhattan, Sweden.

The man, who did not want to be identified, told the BBC that the speed with which it arrived was “fantastic.”

According to the company behind the drone, this meant that defibrillation could begin before an ambulance arrived.

According to the BBC, the patient has no recollection of what happened that day in early December.

When he went into cardiac arrest while clearing thick snow from his driveway, “everything went black,” he said.

His wife later told him how fortunate he was. “I was on my way to work at the local hospital when I looked out the car window and saw a man collapsed in his driveway,”

Dr. Mustafa Ali, who happened to be driving by at the time, told Everdrone. Because the man had no pulse, I began CPR while asking another bystander to dial 112 for help (the Swedish emergency number). 

“I saw something flying above my head a few minutes later. It was a defibrillator-equipped drone.”

Everydrone CEO Mats Sallstrom believes the technology helped save the patient’s life as part of a team effort.

He told the BBC that “it’s a medical doctor doing CPR, it’s early defibrillation, it’s treatment in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.”

“It’s critical to understand that the person’s life is saved by a series of events, and the drone is a critical component of that system.”

The drone is a collaboration between Sweden’s largest medical university, Karolinska Institutet, and national emergency operator SOS Alarm, Region Vastra Gotaland, and Everdrone.