Smartphone app helps man save baby's life
6 Sep FOX News
A baby boy is alive thanks to a mechanic who used a smartphone app to
alert him of the emergency, KXLY reported.The 1-month-old stopped
breathing at the Empire Dance Shop in Spokane, Wash., where a store
clerk called 911 before starting rescue breathing techniques on the
child.
"When you hear that you just pick up the phone and call 911, so I did
that and I saw her and she was just saying, 'He's not breathing, he's
not breathing,'" Lesley Reckord, a former lifeguard told KXLY of her
efforts.Less than two blocks away, mechanic Jeff Olson got an alert on
his phone letting him know of the emergency."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 told the station.
Olson had downloaded the Pulse Point app which uses a phone's own GPS
to alert users trained in CPR of nearby cardiac cases. A volunteer EMT
trained in the life-saving technique, Olson raced to the location
indicated by the app."I asked the lady standing outside, 'Do you have a
medical emergency here?' And she said it's an infant and he's blue. I
just kind of, you know, just suck up a little bit," he said.Olson kept
the baby alive until emergency medical personnel arrived on the
scene."This guy just came out of nowhere and just scooped the baby up
and really knew what he was doing which was such a blessing to all of
us," Reckord said.
It's the first time a Pulse Point user has saved a life since the
Spokane Fire Department connected the technology to its 911 dispatch
center."The real reason we are so invested in this technology is that
you can be a lifesaver," assistant fire chief Brian Schaeffer said.
"This is one of the only apps that you can download if you know CPR, you
can actually save somebody's life." |