'Uber For CPR': St. Louis Park Adopts Heart Attack App
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The city of St. Louis Park thinks they now have a phone app that can save lives.
PulsePoint alerts you if someone is having a cardiac arrest in your area, so you can help.
"Basically, they created an app that works somewhat like Uber for CPR," said John Wolff, deputy chief of the St. Louis Park Fire Department.
For every minute that a cardiac arrest victim goes without CPR, their chances of survival drop by 10 percent.
"About 50 times a year, an average of once per week, we actually have a public event, a public CPR event," Wolff said. "In other words, it's happening in a public place, in a store, in a public building, out on the street."
That is why Wolff is so excited about PulsePoint. It was invented in Silicon Valley by a fire chief and app developers.
People who know CPR can download PulsePoint on their phones. When a 911 call is made for someone who needs help, PulsePoint notifies you if you're within a quarter mile of the victim.
"And it comes across just like an Amber Alert does," Wolff said.
The alert gives you the location of the victim, and it also shows you how close you are to an AED.
St. Louis Park has identified about 20 AED's for the app so far, and they're asking businesses to let them know if they have one.
Their hope is to get more people involved in saving lives when the seconds matter most.
"The people that are there have their arms folded, and we want to train people so they're doing CPR," Wolff said.
PulsePoint is active in St. Louis Park right now and will formally launch at the fire department's open house on Tuesday.
St. Louis Park is currently the only city in the Twin Cities using the app, and they are hoping others follow suit in order to make it more effective.