Frank Pantridge

Professor James Francis "Frank" Pantridge, CBE, MC, MD, (3 October 1916 – 26 December 2004) was a physician and cardiologist from Northern Ireland who transformed emergency medicine and paramedic services with the invention of the portable defibrillator.

Pantridge was born in Hillsborough, County Down, Northern Ireland, on 3 October 1916. He was educated at Friends' School Lisburn and Queen's University of Belfast, graduating in medicine in 1939.

During World War II he served in the British Army. He was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps as a lieutenant on 12 April 1940. He was given the service number 128673. He was awarded the Military Cross during the Fall of Singapore, when he became a POW. He served much of his captivity as a slave labourer on the Burma Railway. When he was freed at the war's end, Pantridge was emaciated and had contracted cardiac beriberi; he suffered from ill-health related to the disease for the rest of his life.

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