Clemens, North Carolina, is acting as one big guinea pig, a testing ground for a whole new kind of rapid response: drone defibrillators.

It sounds odd. It sounds like a drone with a Taser taped to it. The reality of it is much more practical, even if it is rather sci-fi. Duke University’s Duke Health is testing out drones that air-drop automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, straight to bystanders during a cardiac emergency. It’s being billed as the first study of its kind in the United States.

There’s some logic behind it: even if the fastest an EMS team can get to you, it still has to cut through traffic and a complex web of roads. If the quickest route between two points is a straight line, why not attach a payload of medical emergency equipment onto a drone that can fly directly

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