James Francis Pantridge, (3 October 1916 – 26 December 2004) was a Northern Irish physician, cardiologist, and professor who transformed emergency medicine and paramedic services with the invention of the portable defibrillator. Early life Pantridge was born in Hillsborough, County Down (now Royal Hillsborough), Ireland, on 3 October 1916. He was educated at Friends' School Lisburn and Queen's University of Belfast, graduating in medicine in 1939. Military service 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. Medical career After Pantridge's liberation he worked as a lecturer in the pathology department at Queen's University, and then won a scholarship to the University of Michigan, where he studied under Dr. Frank Norman Wilson, a cardiologist and authority on electrocardiography. He returned to Northern Ireland in 1950, and was appointed as cardiac consultant to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast and professor at Queen's University, where he remained until his retirement in 1982. There he established a specialist cardiology unit whose work became known around the world. By 1957 Pantridge and his colleague, Dr John Geddes, had introduced the modern system of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for the early treatment of cardiac arrest. Further study led Frank Pantridge to the realization that many deaths resulted from ventricular fibrillation which needed to be treated before the patient was admitted to hospital. This led to his introduction of the mobile coronary care unit (MCCU), an ambulance with specialist equipment and staff to provide pre-hospital care. During his time living in the hills beyond Poleglass to extend the usefulness of early treatment, Pantridge went on to develop the portable defibrillator, and in 1965 installed his first version in a Belfast ambulance. It weighed 70 kg and operated from car batteries, but by 1968 he had designed an instrument weighing only 3 kg, incorporating a miniature capacitor manufactured for NASA. Much of Pantridge's research was conducted alongside colleague John Anderson, the head of Biomedical