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AVENTURA

Aventura directs police to carry defibrillators

After police officers used a defibrillator to save a woman's life, the city commission authorized the department to purchase defibrillators for all marked vehicles.

jgoyette@MiamiHerald.com

On the morning of Oct. 5, a woman collapsed while jogging on a path by the golf course at the Turnberry Isle Resort & Club in Aventura.

Luckily for her, officers from the Aventura Police Department were nearby with an Automated External Defibrillator -- able to administer electric shocks to person's chest and restart a heart.

She had no pulse when officers got to her side, according to the police report, but her heart started beating again once the officers used the medical device. She was taken to the hospital and has since recovered, according to the department.

The incident helped convince Aventura Police Chief Steve Steinberg that all his officers should have defibrillators, and the Aventura City Commission agreed.

On Tuesday, the commission approved Steinberg's request to use $30,000 from the police forfeiture fund -- which consists of money seized from drug dealers or other criminal enterprises -- to buy defibrillators for all the department's marked vehicles.

Steinberg said that the incident showed how valuable defibrillators could be.

``The doctors told me later that without it, she wouldn't have survived,'' he said.

The commission also approved Steinberg's request to use another $10,000 from the fund to donate to charities. State law requires that police use the fund for crime prevention or charity. Steinberg said that once his crime prevention unit was funded, he felt that giving the rest to charity was the right thing to do.

The donations will go to four nonprofits: Drug Free Youth in Town, which provides drug prevention programming for middle and senior high school students in Miami-Dade; the Wounded Warrior Project, which assists severely injured veterans; A Child is Missing, which is devoted to assisting law enforcement in the search and recovery of missing people; and the Police Officer Assistance Trust, which provides assistance to Miami-Dade law enforcement officers and their families in times of need.

The city commission also voted to adopt a wellness policy for the city's charter school, as required by the Miami-Dade County School system, and to replace out-of-warranty computer equipment at the school, including computers, monitors and printers. The commission authorized the city manager to apply for a federal grant to fund the charter school's Community Drug and Crime Prevention School Resource Officer Program.

To see a copy of the complete meeting agenda, which includes links to relevant documents, go to the city's website, or visit www.MiamiHerald. com/aventura.

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