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KIRKSVILLE, MO --  

A newly formed non-profit group cares about your heart.
    
Our Fact Finder Team learned NEMO Heart Health will be supplying the area with Automated External Defibrillators, or AEDs. The devices are used to shock a person's heart when they are in cardiac arrest.

Emergency personnel say that for every minute that goes by, a person in cardiac arrest loses ten percent of their survival chances.

“If we can accomplish our goal of 50 AEDs in five years and truly get those out into the community and be able to offer the type of training that needs to accompany those devices because the AED is simply a machine, they don't do a lot without training people that can respond in that situation but if we can accomplish that then we have truly accomplished something very significant,” said Troy Mihalevich, NEMO Heart Health Board Chairman.
    
AEDs cost between $1000 and $2000 apiece. The board is looking for funding opportunities, one of which has already come along. The proceeds from this year's heart gala in Kirksville will be given to the NEMO Heart Health organization.

The board is in the process of deciding which AEDs to buy, where to put them, and who to train to use them. They hope to have some in place this year.