If you’re trained in CPR, there’s a new smartphone app that will help you save the life of someone having a heart attack.
This week, the BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS) and the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation released its PulsePoint Respond App — a program that alerts you if there’s someone nearby who’s having a sudden cardiac arrest in a public place.
The free app is connected to the BCEHS’ emergency dispatch system. That means when a heart attack is reported via 911, dispatchers can send the location to anyone in the province who has downloaded the app, and help them get to the victim to employ hands-on CPR as paramedics are on their way.
The app also alerts rescuers to public defibrillators close by.
Available through the Apple Store for iOS and from Google Play Store for Android OS, PulsePoint is currently used in one city in Ontario and around the U.S.
Last year, B.C. paramedics responded to more than 7,100 heart attack calls; in one-quarter of these cases, bystanders performed CPR until emergency personnel arrived on scene.
Hands-only CPR and AEDs can increase the chance of survival as much as 75%, BCEHS reports.
