Why does Seattle holds the world record for survival rates?

You would expect Australia to have a great record in life saving. Australia is well known as country focused on health and fitness and outdoor sports like surfing. The Australian lifeguard is a global symbol of life saving.

The truth is that outdoor living lucky country of Australia does not perform as well in survival rates as Seattle in the USA when it comes to surviving sudden cardiac arrests. Seattle? The same Seattle, best known for its 90 grunge scene, cold weather, Frasier and Starbucks?

Life saving and good health is not part of this city’s popular image. But amazingly Seattle has a 62% sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) survival rate which makes them SCA survival world record holders.

By contrast the survival rate of SCA is only 9% at best in Australia.

So why is Seattle such a safe place to live when it comes to being heart smart?

CPR training in Seattle

The answer comes down to training and education. In Seattle the aim is to get the community CPR friendly through education programs. There are three main principles.

• To increase public awareness and make people aware that sudden cardiac arrest that can happen to anyone, anytime and anywhere.

• To provide education on the importance of CPR: the simple steps for maintaining a patient’s life.

• To provide defibrillator (AED) training. A defibrillator or AED is the only thing that will restart a heart after a sudden cardiac arrest. Understanding how easy they are to use and ensuring that there are public access locations to this important life saving equipment is key to boosting survival rates. The apps such as AED Pulse Point and Good Sam helps everyone know where their closest AED is.

The importance of defibrillators

In Seattle defibrillators are widespread. You can find your nearest AED via your smart phone. In the case of an emergency you are never far away from a defibrillator and with a high proportion of the population knowing exactly how to use them, chances of surviving a SCA are vastly improved. After all an AED will only work if you can find it fast and are not scared to use it.

Improved Australia statistics has potential to save 12,000 deaths p.a

Currently Seattle’s survival rate is 62%. This is due to 75% of the community being CPR friendly and having high access to public defibrillators.

By contrast Australia does not compare well. The rate of survival is 9% or 7 times lower than it is in Seattle and it makes for some grim statistics.

If you suffer a SCA in Australia, you only have a 9% chance of survival. This is because only 26% of the population knows how to carry out basic CPR. There is also low access to public defibrillators.

Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is the no.1 health problem in Australia, yet this common life threatening event is being ignored to a great extent by local authorities and communities.

Australia’s 9% sudden cardiac arrest survival rate is a national disappointment compared to many other countries and something that together we should all take pride in improving.

Every year, there are 25,000 deaths due to SCA in Australia. However if the country followed Seattle’s model, it is estimated that around 12,000 lives per year could be saved.

That means that unless things change 12,000 people could die next year that didn’t have to. People, who could so easily be saved by the use of some relatively inexpensive life saving equipment and some basic training.

Sound defibrillator policy

Currently there is a low level of public access AEDs in Australia. There is no legal obligation to buy a defibrillator (for building compliance etc) and there is no overall integration into all key emergency services nationally.

All AEDs purchased in Seattle must be registered with King County Emergency Medical Services (EMS). The main objective behind this is to ensure that all 000 callers get the location of the nearby AEDs in case of an emergency. Currently there are more than 3000 registered AEDs in King County.

Australia does not have a registration system apart from a voluntary registration onto apps such as AED Pulse Point or Good Sam which most people are not even aware of.

More CPR friendly Australia’s = greater survival rates

The lack of basic CPR friendly skills is also a major factor for Australia’s below par survival record and again the statistics make for grim reading.

Only 26% of Australians are CPR friendly and feel that they would know what to do in dealing with a life threatening SCA emergency.

Although 99% of the Australian population agree that knowing CPR is a ‘vital life skill’, a whopping 70% say they would feel helpless in an emergency situation. With 80% of sudden cardiac arrests happening at home, this means that if this happens to you or a loved one, the chances of finding anyone on hand willing to step in and save your life is rare.

In Australia we have great opportunities for improvement, like a systemic centrally co-ordinated approach to getting Australia CPR friendly as a priority. Many European countries have made a CPR course a prerequisite to getting a drivers license. This simple and effective step will certainly improve survival statistics in the future.

Australia Health Priorities

In Australia it seems there are misdirected priorities when it comes to AED access. With SCAs killing 25,000 Australia’s per year, incredibly one every 20 minutes it is surprising that funding goes disproportionately to other areas or to policies which have far fewer fatalities.

For example fire extinguishers are mandatory in buildings but only 100 people die of fire or smoke each year compared to the 25,000 people who die each year from sudden heart attacks.

Every year 250 people on average die from drowning incidents, around 1200 people a year in road traffic accidents and even more from preventable types of cancer. See graph below.

These types of fatalities are well known and there is legislation and safety measures in place to prevent these types of accident; for example seat belts in cars and warnings about issues such as smoking or skin cancer.

Sadly this same attention to safety has not extended to the risk of SCAs. Although this is Australia’s major cause of death, it seems to have escaped the notice of the general public and governmental policy makers.

On the other side of the world, Seattle gives importance to widespread CPR training so that people have proper knowledge of how to maximize survival rates. It is a strategy which the statistics prove is working well.

Seattle has set the world standard to improve the SCA survival rate. So just ask yourself; can Australia really afford to ignore these lessons?

Seattle: SCA world record holder