Life-saving CPR performed after mobile app funded by El Camino Hospital notifies nearby citizen responder
Sunnyvale, CA, April 13, 2015 - On Wednesday, March 25, 2015, lifelong Sunnyvale resident Walter Huber was sitting down to dinner when he received an alert through PulsePoint, a 9-1-1 connected mobile app designed to alert CPR-trained citizens of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) emergencies in their vicinity. This app alert helped save a man’s life.
The PulsePoint app displayed a map showing Huber, 21, the location of the emergency, which was based on 9-1-1 call information. Using this map, Huber made his way to the reported SCA patient’s location - a soccer field just steps from his home - where he found a man unconscious and surrounded by his teammates. Just minutes earlier the man had collapsed, unresponsive and without a pulse, prompting his teammates to call 9-1-1. Huber, who is CPR trained, immediately assessed the patient and began hands-only CPR. He provided chest compressions until a Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety Officer arrived in a patrol car equipped with an Automated External Defibrillator (AED). The AED delivered a life-saving shock, effectively bringing Farid Rashti, 63, back to life.
"When someone suffers a sudden cardiac arrest, the heart stops beating without any warning so time is critical," said Dr. Chad Rammohan, M.D. medical director of Cardiac Catheterization Lab and Chest Pain Center at El Camino Hospital and a Palo Alto Medical Foundation physician. "It's the 'electrical shock' from the AED that helps to restore the person's heartbeat and it's the mechanical pumping from CPR that helps the SCA victim to recover some blood flow to vital organs such as the brain, heart and the rest of the body."
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