'Saved For A Reason': Colorado Doesn't Track One Of The Leading Causes Of Death, Vail Woman Determined to Change That
DENVER (CBS4)- Cardiac arrest is one of the leading causes of death but the State of Colorado doesn't even recognize it as a disease, let alone collect data or spend any money on research. That would change under a bill at the state Capitol.
This comes after a couple of hundred hospitals and ambulance companies in Colorado participated in a voluntary data collection effort last year, reporting more than 3,300 cardiac arrests, 87% of them resulting in death.
Lynn Blake is one of those who beat the odds. She was 27 years old when she had a cardiac arrest.
"I was newly married... we had just returned from our honeymoon."
It was Valentine's Day 2007 and she was loving life when she nearly died, "I was in mid-conversation with a co-worker when my heart just suddenly stopped."
Had a co-worker not started CPR right away and had the Vail Fire Department not been right across the street, Blake says, she wouldn't be alive.
"The paramedics actually brought the defibrillator, shocked me three times and restarted my heart."
Blake says she didn't know what cardiac arrest was until then. While the state lumps them in with heart attacks, cardiac arrests are caused by an electrical malfunction not a blockage of blood to the heart. Only about 10% of people survive cardiac arrests, many of them with brain damage.
Blake's brush with death changed her life, "I really felt compelled that my life was saved for a reason."
She began teaching CPR, training people how to use automated external defibrillators - or AEDs - and helping pass a bill by Rep. Dylan Roberts that increases access to defibrillators statewide.
Now, she and Roberts have teamed up on a new bill.
"We need to do more to make sure that more AEDs are available but also study this issue to make sure that we have all the data possible so we can make better-informed decisions," says Roberts.
The bill creates an app with a statewide registry of defibrillators and requires statewide tracking of cardiac arrests.
Blake says, "If there's no data and knowledge on what's happening, then how can we improve it?"
After all, she says most people won't be so lucky to have a fire station across the street when they have a cardiac arrest, "One small change or action can result in a life saved."
The bill allocates $500,000 a year for the Office of Cardiac Arrest Management to collect data, maintain a defibrillator registry, and provide education and training.
The bill gets its first hearing March 22.