App could be a real lifesaver

Photo: BC EHS

Imagine if you or someone you loved suffered a massive cardiac arrest out of the blue one day while walking down the street. 

Chances of survival may very well lie in the hands of the nearest stranger. 

BC Emergency Health Services and the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation want to increase the number of people in B.C. who can give hands-only CPR and use defibrillators.

The PulsePoint app alerts you if there is a possible out-of-hospital victim of a sudden cardiac arrest within 400 metres of your location anywhere in B.C. 

If there is a public access defibrillator nearby, the app will tell you where it is. Once you receive the alert and find the patient, you can perform hands-only CPR, and use the AED if available, until professional responders arrive. 

The alerts are triggered by 911 call takers when someone is thought to be in sudden cardiac arrest, choking, fitting or not breathing. 

By the time you see the alert, professional first responders will already be on their way, but they may be several minutes away. 

The app allows you to set the emergency medical service you want to follow. 

For BC, this would be the BC Emergency Health Services. However, you can follow more than one agency or area – for instance, if you live in BC but travel to the US a lot, you can look for local US emergency medical services that might also use PulsePoint.

Anyone in BC who is able to provide CPR to a victim of sudden cardiac arrest is invited to download the PulsePoint app.