The Estevan city council is moving forward on a plan to bring an outdoor AED station to the community.

That's part of a pre-applied grant being offered by Cardiac Safe Communities, covering the cost of the SaveStation unit, the AED, and its monitoring over the next four years.

The city's council discussed the AED station back in April and further looked into the plan during Monday night's council meeting.

City Safety Officer Helen Fornwald detailed some of the work she did reaching out to other communities who installed the device.

I did reach out to Saskatchewan communities that do in fact have it, they're all very positive, every one of them. They focused on having it decentralized In their community, not indoors, but it's outdoors, one in the first month, actually utilized that AED."

"It has an infrared camera in there, so you know if there is a someone taking it out to try and steal it or vandalize it. So the picture will automatically be sent to whoever is going to be monitoring this. It has a fan in there, it's temperature-controlled as well. They just ask that the location where we put it in, it's not in direct sunlight cause that will impact the sensor and the temperature with that as well."

Fornwald says there are a couple of different directions the city could take in regards to installation.

"There's two ways of going to do with that is a stand-alone or we can mount it on a wall of a building. The most important part of that is our contribution, of course, is that if we went to a standalone, we'd require a concrete pad for it and the other one is regardless, if we go wall-mounted or stand-alone is that we would need a source of power for that." 

"They recommended that we have a very good cellular service there because the people, when they go to grab it, are dialing 911. So that would be some of these are facts that we need to decide. Where is the best location that we could be utilized in our community." 

Mayor Roy Ludwig chimed in that Churchill Park was a potential candidate for the station, with Fornwald agreeing and adding other potential spots.

"It is a heavily populated pathway there. There's now the new building, so there is power there, a power source. The other one is again on 4th Street our little park in between (SaskTel and the Salvation Army) is another option as well. We already have AEDs that are located inside of all of our facilities, so this is certainly an outside AED."

Fornwald says that ongoing costs for the AED won't be a problem for the city over the next few years.

"If we get the grant, then we can move forward. Now at the end of four years, that's where it comes with a maintenance cost for the city. So it would be the batteries and the pads and of course, if we're hooking up the power, the power source. But that's at the end of four years. Once we get it installed for the grant, we're good for four years while they maintain it."