It sounds compelling: be your household's own paramedic by wielding the electrodes that could restart a loved one's heart.

But some doctors and other emergency medicine experts are skeptical of the product making that promise -- HeartStart Home, which at a list price of $1,995 is the first external heart defibrillator for sale without a prescription.

External defibrillators in the hands of trained professionals can and do save thousands of lives each year. That it is why they have made their way beyond emergency rooms and ambulances to be widely installed at airports, gyms and other public places.

Even so, each year an estimated 250,000 Americans die of cardiac arrest, their hearts not shocked back to life in the vital first few minutes after they stop beating. Proper use of defibrillators in homes could save 40,000 people a year, according to proponents of the technology, who say that while people with heart disease are more prone to such seizures, they often come without warning and sometimes strike seemingly healthy individuals.