November 14, 2024
Forsyth County Emergency Services Wins 2024 PulsePoint AED Contest
Forsyth County Emergency Services receives five ZOLL® AED 3 Defibrillators to place in the community.
Pleasanton, Calif. (November 15, 2024)—The PulsePoint Foundation, a public non-profit 501(c)(3), announced that Forsyth County Emergency Services, in North Carolina, has won the 2024 PulsePoint AED Contest, winning five ZOLL® AED 3 Defibrillators for their community.
The contest took place during the month of October, Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month, and was eligible to any community using PulsePoint AED to locate and register AEDs. Forsyth County Emergency Services collectively registered a record number of AEDs, 555, at locations throughout the county including schools, government buildings, local businesses and gyms.
The newly registered AEDs are part of the free and universally accessible National Emergency AED Registry, hosted by PulsePoint. The AEDs in the registry have been vetted by public safety personnel so their location is available to emergency responders and 9-1-1 telecommunicators during cardiac emergencies. View this map to see all vetted AEDs registered through PulsePoint AED in Forsyth County. To register additional AEDs download the free PulsePoint AED app or register them online at AED.new.
“We are on a mission to improve sudden cardiac arrest long-term survival rates in our community and I am confident the addition of PulsePoint and these registered AEDs will help us do just that,” said Joey Hundley, Director, Forsyth County Emergency Services. “We know the chance of survival decreases by 10 percent for every minute that goes by without chest compressions (CPR). The more people who know how to do compression-only CPR and the more access the community has to AEDs, the more lives we can save.”
“Becoming a HEARTsafe community is developing a web of safety over the community so that when cardiac arrest occurs, the community can respond and make cardiac arrest a survivable event,” said Hundley. “While one person can make a difference, it’s a whole team of people, almost always strangers to each other, that saves lives. We express our deepest gratitude to PulsePoint and ZOLL for their donation of five new AEDs and we extend our thanks to all the people who have registered AEDs in the program during October/‘Shocktober’.”
Why Cataloging AED Locations is Crucial
More than 350,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) occur annually in the U.S. making it a leading cause of death. Survival rates nationally for sudden cardiac arrest are less than 10 percent. However, cardiac arrest victims who receive a shock from a publicly-available AED administered by a bystander prior to EMS arrival have 2-3 times better odds of survival to hospital discharge and more favorable outcomes. Without bystander AED use, 70 percent of cardiac arrest patients either die or survive with impaired brain function. Despite the life-saving potential of AEDs, they are of no value if they cannot be located and placed into service during a cardiac emergency.
About the PulsePoint Foundation
PulsePoint is a public 501(c)(3) non-profit foundation that builds applications for use by public safety agencies to increase community awareness during critical events. The PulsePoint Respond mobile app notifies trained individuals of the nearby need for CPR and the PulsePoint AED registry identifies AED (automated external defibrillator) locations for use by the public and 9-1-1 telecommunicators during emergency call taking. PulsePoint also provides specialized mobile apps for professional responders. Learn more at pulsepoint.org. The free app is available for download on the App Store and Google Play.
About Forsyth County Emergency Services
Forsyth County Emergency Services is located in north central North Carolina in the Piedmont Triad area and is home to six colleges and universities including Wake Forest University. The County has a population of nearly 400,000 residents and is the 4th largest county in North Carolina. The department has just under 300 employees including 9-1-1 Communications, Emergency Medical Services (EMS), and the Fire Marshals Office. In 2023, the EMS system had 63,592 calls for service.
PulsePoint
Shannon Smith
shannon@pulsepoint.org
(773) 339-7513
Forsyth County
Chief Joey Hundley
hundlejl@forsyth.cc
(336) 703-2751