Ordinary citizens can become lifesavers with new app

Certain first responders won’t necessarily have to arrive in an ambulance.

Manatee County public safety leaders Friday announced a new mobile app called PulsePoint, which Manatee County residents and visitors can download for free and use to be alerted of a sudden cardiac arrest event near them.

“In a cardiac arrest situation, as I’m sure you’re all aware, seconds can truly mean the difference between life and death,” Manatee County Public Safety Director Bob Smith said.

If someone in a public area calls 911 to seek medical help for a sudden cardiac arrest, the call will be dispatched to fire departments or EMS and an alert will be sent to any PulsePoint app user within a quarter-mile radius of the call.

With the app, users have the opportunity to aid the patient before rescuers arrive.

“Communities across this country that have incorporated this app as part of their emergency response efforts are already seeing a marked improvement in cardiac patient survival,” Smith said.

Sudden cardiac arrest is different from a heart attack in that an electric rhythmic abnormality, or arrhythmia, stops the heart from pumping blood to the rest of the body, according to the Mayo Clinic. A heart attack happens when blood flow to the heart is stopped, which can cause an electric abnormality and then sudden cardiac arrest. A person suffering from sudden cardiac arrest loses consciousness and collapses, with no pulse or breath, and it causes about 325,000 deaths a year in the United States.

While the county strongly advises anyone with CPR training to download PulsePoint, instructions on how to perform CPR, including a metronome for timing of compressions, and use an external automated defibrillator, or AED, can be found in the app. PulsePoint also has a map that details where the nearest public defibrillator is and what calls EMS are responding to at that time.

To increase the accuracy of the app and potentially help save a life, private businesses that have AEDs can register that information with PulsePoint.

Southern Manatee Fire & Rescue Chief Brian Gorski said his firefighters already have the app on their phones. The county would eventually like to get all of its employees trained in using the app and then hold CPR classes for residents.

Manatee County Emergency Communications Chief Jake Saur said local officials wanted to learn where the AEDs in the county were.

“If you call 911 in Manatee County, one of the first things the dispatcher will ask you is, ‘Do you know where the nearest AED is?’” he said. “We thought it was a win-win situation for us and the citizens of Manatee County to introduce this application.”

This story was originally published November 3, 2017 at 11:53 AM with the headline "Ordinary citizens can become lifesavers with new app."