Cardiac Safety Center

Here's what every community needs to know in order to save lives of youth athletes, coaches, officials or spectators in the stands in sudden cardiac arrest (SCA):

1. SCA kills at least 350,000 people in the United States each year, more people than all forms of cancer combined.

2. Without proper treatment an SCA victim is virtually certain to die, often within minutes.

3. Because CPR is not, by itself, an effective treatment for the arrhythmia that causes SCA, prompt CPR is not enough by itself: the survival rate for victims in SCA treated by CPR alone is between 2 to 5%.

4. A community which has implemented a strong cardiac chain of survival (recognizing a cardiac emergency and calling 911, early CPR, early defibrillation, and early advanced cardiac life supportcan dramatically increase the survival rate for SCA victims, saving as many as one-third to one-half of victims with treatable heart arrhythmia

5. The most critical link in the cardiac chain of survival is early defibrillation with an Automatic External Defibrillator. Each minute that defibrillation is delayed reduces the victim's chance of survival by about 10 percent.