KINGSTON – Mary Jo Cipollini was in the parking lot of Price Chopper in Poughkeepsie about five years ago when she collapsed from a sudden cardiac arrest.

Being in a public place, an ambulance was called immediately, and she credits her survival to those immediate efforts and the Automated External Defibrillator (AED) the emergency responders had on hand in the ambulance when they took her to the emergency room.

“I am the luckiest – unluckiest – person alive,” said Cipollini, a Town of Lloyd resident, as she shared her story at a news conference Monday.

The event was conducted in the Ulster County Office Building to kick off CPR and AED Awareness Week as part of Ulster County’s Heart Safe Community Program.

“I am living proof why Ulster County should be a heart safe community,” she said.

In March, the county established the Heart Safe Program Task Force, and the now the county is working to help make AEDs, portable machines the size of a brief case, available in as many public and work places as possible.

“The county made an initial contribution of $5,000 from its contingency fund to fund a program to purchase sign, logos and decals for participants of the heart safe community,” said Rob Parete, county legislator from Boiceville and chairman of the Ulster County Legislature’s health services committee.

The task force includes Victor Work, Ulster County Supervisor of Building and Grounds, Art Snyder, Ulster County Director of Emergency Management, Dean Palen, Ulster County Public Health Director, Anthony Marmo, of the Northeast Head Trauma Center and Michele Lieberman, of the American Heart Association.

Marmo, Work and Lieberman, all urged the importance of AEDs and CPR training during the press conference. Work noted that many of the machines have already been placed in county offices

And the county is doing more than just promote the use of these machines. It is helping organizations and businesses purchase them as well.

“The participants of the program can purchase them directly through the county, and the county is going out to bid to get them to through a lower rate purchasing price. And that price should be made available soon,” said Parete.

“It’s an important program,” added Parete. “We need to get as many AEDs as possible and train as many people as possible in CPR and to protect as many citizens as possible in this county.”

It’s estimated that those brought down by sudden cardiac arrest are much more likely to survive if they are served by an AED within three to five minutes of that heart attack.