You see them everywhere: at airports, malls, work. But the National Institutes of Health says Americans die needlessly from heart attacks because so few people know how to use the defibrillators that got so much PR when they first were installed.

This seems like a natural public service campaign for media outlets: Teach the public how to use these things and find stories of people who have been saved by them. I would start by calling cardiologists.

Related resources from the NIH:

• What is sudden cardiac arrest?
• News release, "Public Access Defibrillation by Trained Community Volunteers Increases Survival for Victims of Cardiac Arrest"

You may have also seen this week that the American Heart Association now says you do not have to breathe into someone's mouth to administer CPR. That is a big change.

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