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There is no "reason why we should not pursue this," said professor of medicine Thomas Rea, who studies prehospital emergency care at the University of Washington. Yet the experience so far from the pilot communities dispatching off-duty professionals show there "isn't a safety concern," said Rea, who studied the pilot programs and found that responders were well received.In Denmark, the smartphone Heartrunner community first responder app allows dispatchers from the national health emergency number 112 nationwide to contact up to 20 volunteers within a 1.1 mile radius from the scene of a cardiac arrest.
Eisenberg, the resuscitation pioneer who has been developing CPR techniques and teaching them for more than 30 years, said the Danish experience suggests the huge potential this technology would have in the United States. Hannelene Kortegaard, a social and health-care assistant, and her husband, a truck driver, had just finished dinner when the loud alarm sounded from their Heartrunner app.