YAKIMA, Wash. -- As customers and employees frantically worked to save Ellen Davis' life when she collapsed while Christmas shopping, several repeatedly asked for an automated external defibrillator.

Walmart didn't have one. Few stores do.

Davis, 69, was lucky. She has since fully recovered, but a defibrillator probably would have helped that day, according to Yakima deputy fire marshal Ron Melcher.

Melcher and others want Washington stores to consider keeping handy the portable heart shockers used to revive an arrested heart.

"The amount of people inside your store can be staggering at times, so I suggest it is only a matter of time before the next incident of this type," Melcher wrote in a letter to Walmart managers.

Automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, are becoming more common.They hang on the walls of senior centers, fitness clubs and schools. Some factories and warehouses keep them.

Many police officers and sheriff's deputies carry them in their patrol cars. In 2007, the Yakima Fire Department used a $10,000 donation to place eight in town, including the Union Gospel Mission and the SunDome.

Advocates say the devices dramatically boost chances of survival. Generally, those administered a shock within one minute of a heart attack have a save rate of 90 percent, according to the Yakima Fire Department.

The American Heart Association Web site says 34 percent of all heart attack victims die. However, more than half who receive defibrillation, along with CPR, within the first three to five minutes after collapse live. Studies of AEDs in Chicago's airports and Las Vegas casinos have shown survival rates up to 70 percent.

Stores in Washington, however, have been slow to pick up on the trend.

Walmart stores don't have AEDs, managers told Melcher. Several messages with corporate spokesmen and spokeswomen were not returned.

Target stores don't have them where they aren't required, said Jessica Carlson, a corporate spokeswoman in Minnesota. And they're not, in Washington.

Fred Meyer doesn't have them. Neither does Costco in Union Gap.

Ironically, some of these stores sell AEDs.

"I wish I could say that that was an exception," said Dan Mohrbacher, president of AED Advocates, a Yakima nonprofit company that lobbies for more public access defibrillators and also sells them.

It's a different story in Oregon.

Starting this month, a new law requires "places of public assembly," including shopping centers and stores, to provide AEDs and train employees to use them.

Fred Meyer stores spent about $100,000 complying with the law in its 50 Oregon stores, said Melinda Merrill, a company spokeswoman in Portland.

"Well worth it, though," she said.

She said the company supports the law, mostly because it includes a good Samaritan clause specific to AED use that protects those who use one from liability if something goes wrong. Washington has existing good Samaritan laws but nothing specific to defibrillator use.

So far, Washington lawmakers have not tried to impose the same requirement, said Rep. Charles Ross, R-Naches, a member of the House public safety and emergency preparedness committee.

Ross said he'd probably oppose such a move even if it sounds like a good idea on the surface.

"I'm pretty hesitant on mandating things on business in the best of situations," he said. The current patchy economy makes it even worse.

He also would hate to stick businesses with liability if something goes wrong.

In 2005, the Lodi Unified School District in California was sued after a teacher tried using an AED to revive a student; it didn't work because the batteries had worn out. The student suffered brain damage, the family alleged. The suit was settled out of court.

However, AED proponents say liability concerns are overblown.

They say the devices are all but foolproof, allowing even untrained rescuers to use them. Recorded voice prompts give loud, clear instructions about how to place the paddles, when to shock and when to perform CPR.

The paddles detect erratic heart conditions -- called fibrillations -- that are most likely to respond to an electric shock. If the paddles don't detect the right condition, they will not shock.

"As long as you follow those guidelines, you're going to be fine," Melcher said.

Nearly anything you do is better than nothing, he added.

AEDs are common in industrial workplaces.

John I. Haas Inc., a Yakima hops processing and farming business, has nine AEDs in its Yakima Valley operations, which include a CO2 plant on 16th Avenue, a hop pellet plant on Gordon Road, a corporate office on First Avenue and two farms. The company has 160 to 300 employees, depending on the time of year.

"We hope we never use them," said Bob Mondor, safety coordinator for John I. Haas.

Washington Beef in Toppenish did use an AED. It saved the life of Glenn Powers, the cooler supervisor in Toppenish.

It was about 3:30 p.m. on Jan. 2, 2009. Powers, a Selah grandfather of seven, was discussing the next day's schedule with his boss when he blacked out while having a heart attack and collapsed. His boss, Kevin Lawson, and other co-workers performed CPR until the plant's contracted medical administrator showed up with the plant's AED.

The second shock resuscitated his heart.

Powers, now 60, took a few months off for therapy but has since returned to work full time and said he has no ill effects, other than getting tired a little quicker than previously.

The company has since purchased three more AEDs and keeps 40 of its 800 employees trained to use them.

"Had we not had the AED on site ... the outcome with Glenn probably would have been tragically different," said Brad McDowell, president of AB Foods, the parent company of Washington Beef.

* Ross Courtney can be reached at 509-930-8798 or rcourtney@yakimaherald.com.