Manheim Township Ambulance Association is leading a countywide mission to prevent heart attacks from becoming fatal.

The organization on Monday plans to apply for a $540,000 grant from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to launch the Heart Safe initiative.

Through Heart Safe, the association expects to begin placing 299 automated external defibrillators in common gathering places — such as workout gyms and shopping centers — and in municipal police cars across Lancaster County in 2010.

In addition, during the three-year grant period, the association plans to provide public training sessions on how to use the defibrillators, teach CPR classes and conduct health screenings to let people know if they are at risk for heart problems.

"We're at a point now where we feel, instead of being reactive — responding to 911 calls, which we do — we should now be proactive to our community," said Tim Brown, the association's assistant operations director.

James Weber, the organization's community outreach coordinator, called Heart Safe a large-scale continuation of the association's recent efforts to place more than 20 defibrillators in public gathering places throughout Manheim Township.

"It's the same thing, only it's on a bigger scale," he said.

According to Weber and Brown, about 325,000 people die from heart attacks every year.

Many of those deaths can be prevented, the men said, if defibrillators are readily available.

Before a person's heart stops, there is a period of arrhythmia when it beats irregularly.

A defibrillator sends an electric shock directly to a person's heart, breaking that arrhythmia and restoring a normal beat.

Every minute that passes when a person's heart is in arrhythmia, Brown said, decreases the person's chances of survival by 10 percent.

"After just five minutes, if nobody's intervened, they have a 50-50 chance," he said. "But even if the person survives, the brain has been deprived of oxygen for a long time.

"We've literally resuscitated a vegetable."

When someone suffers a heart attack and an ambulance is called, it might be 10 minutes from the time the person was stricken until rescuers arrive.

"We've got a much better chance of saving that person if there's a defibrillator nearby," Weber said.

Anyone can use the "public access" defibrillators, whether they've had training with the devices or not, according to Brown.

"These truly are for public use," he said. "You open the cover and you have voice prompts all the way through.

"It's as simple as using a fire extinguisher."

Lancaster County commissioners paved the way for the ambulance association to apply for the federal grant by voting Wednesday to serve as the association's government partner.

The county would serve as the fiscal manager for the grant project, in accordance with Department of Health and Human Services rules.

"We all understand how much cardiac events plague our community, and anything we can do to get these types of devices into people's hands quicker is important," said Commissioner Scott Martin.

Weber said he expects to learn in September if his association wins the federal grant.

Working with the association on Heart Safe is Lancaster Heart and Stroke Association and Sudden Cardiac arrest Association of Eastern Pennsylvania.

E-mail: preilly@lnpnews.com