An angel as a neighbour
They're called First Responders: ordinary people who, when alerted by a message on their smartphone at any time and in any place, are ready to go to a person's rescue and become resuscitators. People who run to help someone who has suffered cardiac arrest in a matter of moments.
In Ticino, a region with a population of about 350,000 residents, there are more than 2,000 first responders, people who have emerged from an experiment conceived 11 years ago by the Ticino Cuore Foundation. A successful experiment, since the survival rate following a cardiac arrest in Ticino has more than tripled from 16 percent in 2003 to 55 percent in 2014.
But how does this innovative service work? Simple: every first responder has an 'app' on his or her smartphone. When the emergency services are alerted to a cardiac arrest, a message is immediately sent to the smartphones of all 2,000 first responders and if any of them are close to the patient, he or she receives instant directions to the patient's aid. The nearest location of a defibrillator also appears on the responder's smartphone screen.
Presence in the area, speed of response and availability are the ingredients that make the First Responder scheme a winning recipe. An ordinary person can become a First Responder and, perhaps, even an angel.
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