Two Cal State Long Beach staff members will be honored in Sacramento today by Gov. Gray Davis for their efforts to acquire user-friendly heart defibrillators credited with saving two lives on campus.

Clinical coordinator Lawrence Harvey and Dr. Christian Jagusch, a physician with CSULB's Student Health Services Department, are each set to receive Governor's Employee Safety Awards during a special ceremony for starting an automated external defibrillator program at the university.

So far, eight of the heart-shocking devices have been brought to the campus and more than 80 university employees have been trained to use them.

"Hopefully, this award will shed some light on what we're doing at Cal State Long Beach,' said Jagusch, an emergency room doctor and medical director of the CSULB program. Defibrillators, he said, "definitely save lives. We've proven that at the university.'

Each automated defibrillator is about the size of a laptop computer and is capable of analyzing a heart's rhythm for abnormalities. Should a cardiac arrest occur, the defibrillator directs its user to deliver an electrical shock to the victim's heart, ideally helping the heart re-establish an effective rhythm on its own.

Harvey and Jagusch decided to obtain the defibrillators for CSULB about two years ago, noting their potential life-saving benefits at the sprawling 34,000-student campus. The two men developed a policy and procedural manual, which was submitted to the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services for approval. At the same time, university police officers and designated staff members were trained to respond to cardiac emergencies in sessions that included lessons on proper defibrillator use.

Jagusch said CSULB originally started with five automated external defibrillators, but that count has since been bumped to eight. At a cost of about $3,000 each, the machines were purchased from the university's public safety budget.

Over the last 15 months, he said, the devices have been used on five people, saving two of three cardiac arrest victims. In the other two instances, the defibrillators were used only for monitoring, Jagusch said.

Though considered rare for an academic institution, defibrillators like the ones at CSULB are becoming increasingly commonplace in malls, airports and other crowded spots around the country, primarily because the devices are effective and relatively simple to operate. The rescuer is simply required to apply two electrodes to the victim's chest and listen for voice prompts. The machine charges itself and tells the rescuer when to stand clear and press the shock button.

"They're easy to use,' Jagusch said, "and you're protected from any sort of liability under the California statute if you decide to use these units.'

Each year the governor of California honors a couple of hundred state employees and a handful of state agencies with his Governor's Employee Safety Awards. Established in 1980, the awards recognize those who have distinguished themselves through outstanding safety and health service practices during the previous year. Recipients often are those who have taken part in lifesaving efforts, those who have responded to hazardous events or those who have developed safety programs.