Smartphone App Helps Save Washington Baby’s Life
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LDProd/iStockphoto/Thinkstock(SPOKANE, Wash.) — A Washington state man saved a baby’s life thanks to a smartphone app that alerted him that a person nearby was in need of CPR.
Jeff Olson was working at his job as an auto mechanic in Spokane when his phone began to give off what he describes as an Amber Alert-like alarm.
“I looked at it and it said CPR needed and it gave the address,” Olson told ABC’s Spokane affiliate KXLY-TV of the Pulse Point app he had installed on his smartphone.
Olson, who is also a volunteer EMT, ran the two blocks to a nearby store where a clerk had called 911 after a 1-month-old boy inside the store had suddenly stopped breathing.
Olson responded to the store moments before paramedics thanks to his Pulse Point app, which used GPS on Olson’s phone to identify him as within a two-block radius and able to help, according to KXLY.
“I asked the lady standing outside, ‘Do you have a medical emergency here?’ And she said it’s an infant and he’s blue,’” Olson told the station.
“This guy just came out of nowhere and just scooped the baby up and really knew what he was doing which was such a blessing to all of us,” the store clerk, Lesley Reckord, told KXLY.
Olson was able to perform CPR and resuscitate the child.
“I don’t think I’ve ever done CPR on an infant before or even rescue breathing and when I got done I shook for about ten minutes,” Olson said.
The incident was the first time a rescue has occurred with Pulse Point in Spokane since the fire department there connected the app to its dispatch center, according to KXLY.
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