You’re sitting in class, paying attention to everything else other than the worksheet your professor just handed out. You hear sirens so you glance out the window and see an ambulance racing down the street.
As you wonder where they’re going, they pull up out front and rush into the building. Later, you find out that the professor two classrooms over from the one you were sitting in had a heart attack and the outcome wasn’t good because he had to wait 40 minutes for the ambulance to arrive to receive the help he needed.
Could you have helped? Could you have potentially provided lifesaving measures in time?
For a few years now, there have been free apps that provide people with instructions for CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) but just recently, the PulsePoint Foundation has launched an application that is quickly reducing the amount of cardiac related deaths.
The PulsePoint app (available in the Apple App Store and the Google Store for Android) alerts citizens trained in CPR when someone nearby has collapsed due to a cardiac emergency and is in a public space.
When local 911 centers across the nation dispatch rescue units to respond to a cardiac arrest, the PulsePoint software simultaneously sends out a text message to anyone nearby the patient and guides them to their location.
The app also guides citizen responders to the nearest AED (Automated External Defibrillator) so the patient can get the potentially lifesaving help they need.
More information and a link to the PulsePoint webpage can be found on the Longwood University Emergency Response Team's Facebook page and website.
