SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO AM) Sioux Falls will be only the second site in the country for a pilot program using off-duty firefighters to respond to cardiac arrest calls.
The first site for the Verified Responder Program is at Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue in Oregon.
More than 350,000 Americans each year have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) where the heart stops beating, and only 12 percent survive, according to the American Heart Association. The chance of survival decreases by ten percent with every passing minute without CPR.
“Although survival rates in the Sioux Falls area are above the national average, our community continues to strive to increase a person’s chance of survival during a sudden cardiac event,” says Brad Goodroad, Sioux Falls Fire Rescue Chief. “We know that survival relies on early CPR and early defibrillation.”
Sioux Falls has already been using PulsePoint Respond, a software application designed to support public safety agencies in improving cardiac arrest survival rates by notifying CPR-trained volunteers if someone nearby in a public location is having a cardiac emergency. However, there were no programs in the United States with the ability to respond to a home or private location prior to or along with emergency responders, and the Verified Responder program aims to close that gap.