The International Association of Fire Chiefs, Emergency Medical Services Division and Physio-Control honored Delray Beach (Fla.) Fire-Rescue for its innovative approach to implementing and maintaining community public access to defibrillation. Delray Beach received the Hearts Safe Community Public Access to Defibrillation Program/Small Community Award (for populations under 100,000).

Case studies and future white papers will document the success of department's program to promote a best-practices model for other agencies to emulate. Chief David C. James, EMS Division Chief Danielle Connor and Lt. Trisha Dunkelmann accepted the award.

In 2007, Delray Beach Fire-Rescue conducted more than 84 classes on CPR/AED and trained for 1,688 students. That, the city document five instances of AED use by the public prior to the arrival of paramedics, and more than half of the victims survived.