An independent oversight agency plans to audit Metro’s defibrillators after one failed at a station last week when a rider suffered a fatal heart attack.
The Tri-State Oversight Committee, which is charged with monitoring safety on Metro’s rail system, plans to review the transit agency’s policies for inspecting the automated external defibrillators and to independently spot check the units, according to TOC Chairman Matt Bassett. WTOP first reported the investigation.
Metro notified the oversight group as it should have last Monday that rider Eugene McCrea, 51, died that day after suffering a heart attack on the Yellow Line, Bassett said.
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But it wasn’t until late Thursday afternoon — hours after The Washington Examiner started asking questions about the broken defibrillator — that officials notified the safety group that the device at the Pentagon station had a dead battery when riders tried to use it on the fallen McCrea.
“We would have liked to have heard about this particular detail earlier,” Bassett told The Examiner on Monday.
Metro officials have said they knew about the dead battery as early as the day after McCrea died.
But Metro spokeswoman Caroline Lukas declined to comment on why the agency delayed notifying TOC about the broken defibrillator for two days, saying that will be part of the independent group’s review.
Only 46 of the system’s 86 rail stations have had such AED devices.
Metro has since replaced all 46 of the units that it currently has, Lukas said Monday. She declined to provide the age of the units that were replaced or how many were working, saying a review is continuing.
The remaining 40 stations will be outfitted with the devices by April 30, she said. All will be located near station entrances, she said.
Station managers are now required to sign daily inspection of the units, as well, Metro says. They previously had been trained to inspect the units and were certified in CPR and first aid.
