The use of defibrillators - which shock the heart - is "disappointingly low", according to new British research.
Experts found that fewer than two per cent of people suffering a cardiac arrest in England were treated with the device before an ambulance arrived.
The British Heart Foundation (BMF) estimates 60,000 cardiac arrests occur out of hospital every year across the UK.
A cardiac arrest is commonly caused when the person has a problem with the heart, such as a heart attack.
The person is unconscious and there are no other signs of life such as breathing or movement.
Research has shown when somebody is having a cardiac arrest, every minute of delay in resuscitation and defibrillation reduces their chance of survival by 10 per cent.
A defibrillator is a machine that delivers an electric shock to the heart when someone is having an attack, is unconscious and not breathing. It is designed to be used by anyone, including members of the public.
Once the defibrillator box is opened, a recorded voice gives instructions on where to place pads on a person's chest.
Users then simply press a large button to start electrical shocks to the person's heart. The defibrillator will not work unless the person is having a cardiac arrest - meaning people cannot make the situation worse by using one.
The study, published online in the journal Heart, examined use of the devices in one county - Hampshire.
Hampshire was chosen because it has a mix of rural and urban settings, covers an area of 2300 square kilometres, and has a population of around 1.76 million, 12 per cent of whom are aged over 70.
The authors, including from the South Central Ambulance Service and the University of Southampton, reviewed all calls made to the South Central Ambulance Service between September 2011 and August 2012 following a heart attack.
For all emergency calls made from locations other than a person's home, the call handler specifically asks whether the caller can access a defibrillator. If so, instructions are given in how to use it.
During the course of the study, the service received 1035 calls about confirmed cardiac arrests away from a hospital - the equivalent of one for every 600 members of the public each year.
For 44 of these incidents (4.25 per cent), in 34 different locations, the caller was able to access an external defibrillator. But it was successfully retrieved and used in less than half the cases (18 cases) before the arrival of an ambulance.
This gave an overall use rate of just 1.74 per cent of all cardiac arrests recorded, which the authors said was "disappointingly low" and similar to previous figures from the London Ambulance Service.
Across Hampshire, 673 defibrillators that could be accessed by the public were located in 278 places, including 146 devices placed in large shopping centres.
The research showed that only just over one in 10 nursing homes, around one in 20 train stations and a similar number of community centres and village halls had defibrillators.
The experts said their findings "would probably be similar" to elsewhere in the UK.
They said only between two per cent and 12 per cent of those who have a cardiac arrest outside hospital survive but defibrillators could at least double the chance of survival.
In an accompanying editorial, Dr Mickey Eisenberg and Dr Tom Rea, of King County Emergency Medical Services in Seattle in the US, said defibrillators should be considered a public safety device similar to smoke alarms and fire extinguishers.
"We can be thankful for the handful who are saved with early defibrillation, but we should be troubled by the many who are denied the benefit," they said.
