Almost everyone has seen defibrillators on TV: A patient suffers a heart attack, so a doctor rubs together two paddles, yells “clear!” and places the paddles on a patient’s chest to administer a shock that jumpstarts the heart back into its normal rhythm. Now a safe, low-energy version of this medical instrument could save a life in a store near you.

Robert Zalenski, MD, director of clinical research and associate professor of emergency medicine, is leading the Michigan branch of a nationwide research study to determine whether more people who have cardiac arrests in public would be more likely to be saved by lay people using defibrillators or CPR within three minutes.

About one-fourth of the 300,000 people who die from cardiac arrest annually are outside the home.

“Sudden death from cardiac arrest really is a terrible plague, and this study could help to find ways to address it,” Dr. Zalenski said.

As part of the two-and-a-half year study, which is coordinated by the University of Washington at Seattle, employees of 40 Meijer stores, the Museum of African-American History and the Detroit Institute of Arts will be instructed to use defibrillators or rapid-response CPR in the case of cardiac arrest. The defibrillators used are voice-prompted and are guided by a “smart computer” that will not allow a shock unless it detects a grossly abnormal heart rhythm. Each store randomly assigned to use defibrillators will receive four instruments so that they will be within a three-minute reach of anywhere in the store.

The Michigan sites, which are throughout metro-Detroit as well as Flint, Lansing, Grand Rapids and Jackson, were chosen based on the volume of people who visit them. Sites that large generally have an average of one cardiac arrest every one or two years.