Heart Association Reinforces Importance of Emergency Response Time

NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

Contacts:

Warren Hultquist (303) 541-0151

David Wagner (303 440-1005

HEART ASSOCIATION REINFORCES IMPORTANCE OF EMERGENCY RESPONSE TIME

Boulder, Colorado--August 17, 2000--The American Heart Association (AHA) announced new guidelines for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on August 15, 2000 that incorporate standards for timely defibrillation in cases of cardiac arrest. The AHA long ago established a standard for commencement of CPR within four minutes of cardiac arrest, based on survival rate data. The new guidelines recognize that CPR alone will not restart a stopped heart, and set five minutes as the goal for defibrillation outside the hospital setting. The AHA concluded that even when CPR is started earlier, every minute that defibrillation is delayed reduces a patient's survival rate by up to ten percent. If no treatment is started before the five minute mark, survival probability is only 40 percent and declines quickly.

This guideline has special significance in Boulder, Colorado, where supporters of traffic devices that delay emergency response have suggested that wider use of automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) could reduce the need for rapid emergency response, allowing placement of more speed bumps and traffic circles. But despite the city's official emergency response time target of six minutes on 90 percent of calls, much of the community lies outside the six-minute response area because fire stations are so far apart. (First response to medical emergencies comes from the Fire Department.)

During 1999, the six-minute goal was met just 72 percent of the time. So, while fire trucks carry AEDs and firefighters are trained emergency medical technicians, they already arrive too late in some cases to save lives. The new fire station under construction on 55th Street in east Boulder will improve the situation in that section of town, but many areas in the city's older, western core will remain outside effective response range. For example, a stretch of Arapahoe Avenue near Boulder High School is beyond the six-minute response zone of every fire station.

Warren Hultquist, chair of the SECONDS COUNT! group backing a citizens initiative to improve emergency response, commented on the new AHA guidelines, saying "Here is one more proof that we don't have any emergency response margin to give away and why everyone needs to be involved in a decision to degrade emergency service. This shows why it's unfair to address a speeding problem with traffic obstacles close to a fire house at the expense of those who live further away. Our fire chief made that point long ago."

In a memorandum written in March 1997, Boulder's Fire Chief Larry Donner said, "Time delays have a more negative impact on people the farther they are from help. A 30-second delay in an emergency response is more detrimental to people when added onto a six minute response than when added onto a two minute response. Full-blown traffic mitigation on emergency response routes will disproportionately impact citizens living and working at the edges of Fire Department response districts."

Jeff Forster, President and CEO of Pridemark Paramedic Services, which provides ambulance service in Boulder, expressed similar concerns in a letter endorsing the ballot initiative. "Traffic mitigation devices that slow personal vehicles will also slow ambulances and other emergency vehicles. This delays our arrival to the scenes of medical emergencies...."

SECONDS COUNT! is a citizens' initiative on the November 7, 2000 ballot in Boulder, Colorado to prohibit traffic devices proven to delay emergency response. SECONDS COUNT! is on the web at http://www.secondscount.org.

# # #