A defibrillator such as an automated external defibrillator (AED) includes a manual override feature which enables the AED to reduce the power consumption and owner annoyance after a self-testing fault. The AED, upon sensing a press of a manual override button or a receipt of an acknowledgement signal from a remote service provider, defers one or both of an alarm output and a subsequent self-test for a predetermined correction period. The deferral allows the user to correct the self-test fault during the correction period without further annoyance.
