Stockholm residents who call the Swedish equivalent of 911 for a cardiac emergency can now expect a much faster response, thanks to a service called SMSlivräddare (SMSLifesaver). This new innovative approach sends a text message to all registered volunteers whose home addresses are within 500 meters of the call’s location. Often, the volunteer reaches the victim before the ambulance (or police or firefighters), saving valuable minutes of response time. So far, 9,600 citizens are signed up as volunteers, all of them certified in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
