PulsePoint app already helping to save lives

JERSEY CITY (WABC) -- There seems to be an app for about everything these days.

Now some local developers have come up with one that they say can help save lives.

It alerts people when someone nearby is in need of emergency help.

It is a cell phone beep that could make the difference between life and death.

"It's the next step in order to increase people's survivability when they are having a heart attack or go into cardiac arrest," said Robert Luckritz, the Jersey City EMS Director.

Next week, Jersey City and much of Hudson County will join about 600 communities across the country using the app PulsePoint.

Anyone who knows how to perform CPR can download the app and then get notified on their phone, through local EMS dispatchers, when someone nearby is suffering cardiac arrest in a public place and needs quick help.

"The best way to get that early CPR is to have a bystander really jump in and help until EMS can get there," said Steven Cohen, the Jersey City Asst. EMS Director.

Officials say that every day here in the United States 1,000 people experience cardiac arrest outside of a hospital. Every second a victim has to wait to have CPR started on them drops their chance of survival by 10%.

Just recently, the app came to the rescue of a one-month-old baby boy in Spokane, Washington, who stopped breathing inside of a store.

Jeff Olson, an auto technician and volunteer EMT, was just two blocks away when the alert came through on his phone.

"It sounded like an amber alert, you know how they come out, and so I looked at it and it said CPR needed and it gave the address," Olson said.

Olson rushed to the store and helped resuscitate the child, who's now recovering.

"We need people to download the app, we need people to learn CPR, and we need businesses that have defibrillators in their businesses to contact us," Cohen said.

"We're reaching out to the community and we're empowering them to take control of their health, take control of medical emergencies, and really help us to improve the community's wellness," Luckritz said.

For more information please visit: http://www.pulsepoint.org/