Be a Lifesaver
Cardiac arrest remains the number one global cause of death with 17.3 million deaths each year.
The Be a Lifesaver Hawaiʻi program is designed to raise awareness surrounding sudden cardiac arrest, stress the importance of learning and performing bystander chest-compression-only CPR, and provide public access to automated external defibrillators (AEDs) by placing them in high-risk public locations across the island of Hawaiʻi. By training the public to become bystander responders we can raise out-of-hospital survival rates to be in-line with those on the mainland where other similar programs have been launched such as Tucson, Arizona, Seattle, Washington and Rochester, MN where survival rates are well above the national averages (30-45% respectively).
Cardiac arrest remains the number one global cause of death with 17.3 million deaths each year. According to the American Heart Association, this number is expected to rise to 23.6 million by 2030. Of those cases treated by emergency medical services, 10.6% survived. Of the identified 19,300 bystander-witnessed cases in which individuals had a heart rhythm that could be treated effectively with a defibrillator 31.4% survived. On Hawaiʻi Island the survival rate has increased from 4% in 2014 to nearly 12% in 2018. The increase in survival rate is related to collaboration and communication between out-of-hospital EMS teams and the emergency room personnel for incoming cardiac arrest patients. The missing component on Hawaiʻi Island has been the lack of public training and awareness of how to respond to cardiac arrests outside of the hospital setting. We encourage our community members, from keiki to kapuna, to reach out for FREE training today!