WESTFIELD (WISH) – A free mobile app designed to save lives recently launched in Westfield.
The app is called PulsePoint, and it gives you the power to help save someone’s life during a cardiac emergency.
The idea is that people certified in CPR could get to someone in need even before first responders do.
68-year-old Carmel resident Viren Sarin was just doing a light workout at the gym in March 2018, when he had a heart attack.
“Didn’t feel anything. I finished my routine, walking down the stairs and next thing I know, I’m being taken to the hospital,” Sarin said.
Thankfully, an off-duty Carmel Police officer, two ER nurses and a couple of cardiologists were all exercising at the gym when it happened. They saved his life.
“I’m just fortunate,” Sarin said. “I can tell somebody I’m a survivor.”
Here’s how the app works.
911 dispatches a cardiac arrest call happening in a public place. An alert immediately goes to your phone via the app if you’re within a half-mile of the emergency.
“And you’ll be able to go and either do CPR or use an AED,” Westfield Fire Chief Marcus Reed said. “The app also will show you the locations of AEDs in all of your public buildings.”
Several other cities nationwide already use the app.
There are even moving pictures and sound to remind you how to do hands-only CPR.
“Time is obviously important, it’s crucial. This application allows people to go and help their fellow citizen,” Chief Reed said.
“This allows us to expand the responsibility that we take very seriously to serve all of Hamilton County,” Riverview Health CEO Seth Warren said.
The way first responders and Sarin see it, people in the right place at the right time could become life-savers.
“It’s a powerful tool,” Sarin said.
Chief Reed said the app requires you to click a box within the app that says you do, in fact, know CPR.
He said the app only works in public spaces, meaning you can’t go into someone’s home.
(Photo by WISH-TV.)
