If someone has a heart emergency at First Congregational Church of Wiscasset, a new tool and some free training Wiscasset Ambulance Service is giving several members this week could help until WAS arrives.

The training Jenn Spaur and Beth Maxwell got Sunday and eight other members were set to get Wednesday covered steps to take, including telling a specific person to call 911 and, if there is one, another person to go get that new tool – an automatic electronic defibrillator (AED); when you say, ‘‘Someone call 911,” no one does, paramedic Jon Powers told Sunday’s trainees.

Upstairs in the church, Powers and advanced emergency medical technicians (EMTs) Lina Wallace and Meriel Longley showed Spaur and Maxwell how to use their hands to do chest compressions at about 100 beats a minute and they invited the two women to practice it. The WAS team said giving the compressions can be tiring, so when they do it they take turns in about two-minute rounds. The goal is to keep doing it, until the person revives or the ambulance arrives, Longley said. The person having the emergency needs to be lying on a hard surface, Powers said. And the work should not be done in the pews, he advised. There’s not enough room, he said.

When Spaur and Maxwell finished a round of compressions while kneeling on the floor, Longley clapped once and said, “You did it!”

Later came an overview of the AED, with its pads and other items including shears to cut into clothing to reach the chest; and the device’s oral instructions Powers said play in a cycle. “It walks you right through everything you need to do,” Powers said.

The church’s organ society had discussed getting the church an AED, society treasurer Jackie Lowell said. But then someone anonymously donated the $900-plus for it, which was wonderful because now the church has it and the society’s funds can go to other things, she said. The AED was ordered through the ambulance service; WAS charged the church nothing for the training and can do the same for other community groups, Powers said.

He said the American Heart Association website has information on hands-only CPR. As for the church’s new AED and the members wanting to learn how to use it,  he said, “I think this is a great thing,” in part because churches have a lot of older members, he added. Church members interviewed expressed thanks for the ambulance service providing the sessions.