Minister for Health Ryan Park is calling on more people to sign up as a NSW Ambulance GoodSAM volunteer this Restart a Heart Day so they can help save a life if someone near them has a cardiac arrest.
NSW Ambulance attends to around 9,000 people in NSW who experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest each year and statistics show only 12 per cent of people who receive resuscitation survive.
The GoodSAM app works by alerting registered responders when someone near them goes into cardiac arrest and a Triple Zero (000) call has been received.
The GoodSAM app has helped directly save 36 lives in NSW since it was launched in 2023.
Responders can opt whether or not to accept the alert and respond by providing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), while at the same time, an ambulance is dispatched.
NSW Ambulance has incorporated the NSW public access defibrillator registry into the GoodSAM app, meaning responders can also see if an automated external defibrillator (AED) is located near a person experiencing cardiac arrest and use it to improve that person's chance of survival.
John Cornell is one of the lucky survivors of a cardiac arrest, thanks to his fast-thinking teenage son and bystanders who sprang into action when he collapsed in March, and he is showing his support for Restart a Heart Day by sharing his story.
John said his cardiac arrest came out of nowhere while he and his son were out for a walk in Lawson, in the NSW Blue Mountains.
While John's son Matthew called Triple Zero (000), community members began chest compressions and fetched an AED from a nearby public swimming pool, which they used to restart his heart.
When they arrived, paramedics took John to the emergency department at Blue Mountains District Anzac Memorial Hospital, before he spent 12 days in the Intensive Care Unit at Nepean Hospital, where he had another heart attack.
Fortunately, he has since made a full recovery.
Restart a Heart Day is an international campaign, coordinated in Australia and New Zealand by the Council of Ambulance Authorities, reminding people how to respond if they believe someone has suffered a cardiac arrest:
Members of the community can sign up as a GoodSAM volunteer and learn lifesaving CPR and how to use a defibrillator with NSW Ambulance paramedics, who will be at Parramatta Farmers Market, Centenary Square, Parramatta from 7.30am to 2.00pm today.
You can register as a GoodSAM responder if you're 18 years old or over, and able and willing to provide chest compressions, which are easy and safe to do. You don't need to have formal first aid or CPR training. To register, please visit: ambulance.nsw.gov.au/goodsam
In 2022, the NSW Government announced a $2.5 million partnership between NSW Ambulance and the GoodSAM responder app.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Health, Ryan Park:
“The best chance of survival for anyone having an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is receiving early chest compressions and defibrillation from an automated external defibrillator.
“The first eight minutes after someone suffers a cardiac arrest is crucial and for every minute a patient is in cardiac arrest and does not receive CPR or a shock from a defibrillator, their chance of survival drops by 7 to 10 per cent.
“Restart a Heart Day is a great opportunity to ask yourself if you know what to do if someone near you has a cardiac arrest and to familiarise yourself with the life-saving actions of 'call, push and shock' and sign up to GoodSAM."
Quotes attributable to NSW Ambulance Chief Executive Dr Dominic Morgan:
“If you see a community member who has had a cardiac arrest, the best thing you can do is call Triple Zero (000) and start chest compressions.
“Over 8,000 community members have already joined our free life-saving GoodSAM program and more volunteers will lead to more lives being saved.
“GoodSAM volunteers nearby will be notified as an ambulance is being dispatched and our emergency medical call taker will give you clear instructions and stay with you on the phone until paramedics arrive."
Quotes attributable to John Cornell:
“There are so many people that I need to thank, but unfortunately I don't know who most of them are.
“They call the blockage that I had in my heart 'the widow maker', and my family really took the brunt of the trauma of everything that happened."