From the October 2015 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Pantridge decided to develop a portable defibrillator that would bring the life-saving intervention to the heart attack victim. Using a miniature piece of technology developed by NASA, he put together a defibrillator that only weighed 5 pounds and operated on battery power. Together with his colleagues, he also later added a safety feature to ensure that non-medical personnel appropriately used the device. The upgraded defibrillator only worked when it detected a ventricular fibrillation.
Pantridge advocated for defibrillators to be as ubiquitous as fire extinguishers, but it took decades for the device to even become a standard part of an ambulance in the United Kingdom. (It was adopted much faster in other parts of the world.) When the first Mobile Intensive Care Unit was finally created in England, it was named the “Pantridge Plan.”
Pantridge received numerous accolades and honors for his invention. He was appointed a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1957 and served as the chairman of the British Cardiac Society. Although a brilliant clinician and inventor, Pantridge had a personality that some people found off-putting and abrasive. One university colleague remarked that his “clicked fingers acted as punctuation and the stiff index finger directed the verbal missile.” Pantridge battled a long illness before he died on Dec. 26, 2004, at the age of 88. In addition to his academic publications, Pantridge published an autobiography, which he appropriately titled, An Unquiet Life.
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