An iPhone app used in California alerts CPR trainees of cardiac arrests in progress. (San Ramon Calif. Fire Dept.)
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CHICAGO (CBS) — A new iPhone app may save your life someday.
CBS2’s Mike Parker reports how the new technology, which is already working in California, may be headed for Chicago.
The app alerts iPhone users who are trained in CPR that a cardiac arrest is under way and tells them where they can go to help the victim until an ambulance arrives. The system was recently put in place by the San Ramon Valley Fire Department.
An emergency room doctor from Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago hopes to see the APP system working here before long.
“I think it has the potential to save many lives,” Dr. Amer Aldeen says.
Next week, two Chicago aldermen, Ed Burke and James Balcer, will be asking the City Council to call on the city’s Fire Department and Office of Emergency Management and Communications to launch the CPR app here.
CBS2 video editor David Bierman is one of thousands of Chicago civilians trained and certified in administering CPR as well as defibrillation devices.
“One of the things we learned in our classes is that if the Fire Department can’t get there within 3 to 5 minutes, your chances of living are very slim,” he said.
Dr. Aldeen agrees.
“Cardiac arrest survival decreases about 10 percent per minute when nothing is done. Properly performed, CPR actually improves that survival considerably,” he said.
The San Ramon Valley Fire Chief says that since his department began using the Smartphone app, it has been downloaded by 40,000 people.
