Cardiac arrest: the challenge for first responders: the South must build a lifesaving network.

Southern Italy. A phone rings. A notification on your smartphone. A few hundred meters away, a person suffering from cardiac arrest. The emergency system capable of coordinating these elements.

"It's not enough to say how many defibrillators have been installed. We need to know where they are, whether they're accessible, and how to ensure they can quickly reach the person who needs them," Colangelo explains. The challenge, therefore, is to transform these individual elements into a true lifesaving network. Training remains essential.

No application can replace a person who knows what to do.

Training first and foremost

For this reason, technology must necessarily be combined with training. Schools, associations, sports clubs, businesses, and local communities can become places where first aid culture is disseminated.

"Cardioprotection must become part of everyday culture. We need to get to the point where recognizing an AED and knowing what to do when dealing with an unconscious person become widespread knowledge."

This is also the goal of Vite in Salvo, the comic book created by Colangelo to introduce children, teenagers, and families to lifesaving techniques.

An appeal for the South

The cardiologist's proposal is therefore to initiate a discussion between Regions, healthcare companies, Operations Centers, Municipalities, associations, and organizations involved in training.

Not to replace the emergency system, but to strengthen it.

Because in the face of cardiac arrest, every minute counts.

And if a trained citizen can arrive before the ambulance, if an AED can be quickly located, and if technology can connect these elements, then those minutes can become a concrete chance of survival.

"The South has professionals, volunteers, associations, and citizens who are sensitive to these issues. We don't have to start from scratch. We need to network what already exists."

AEDs, citizens and technology: the possible network

A large lifesaving network for Southern Italy: AEDs, trained citizens, technology, and an emergency response system.

Because when a heart stops, the most important distance is not measured in kilometers, but in minutes.

(Dr. Giuseppe Colangelo – Cardiologist, Sarno Hospital)