Who CARES?

Heart attacks kill almost 300,000 people each year in the U.S. and, of those who die, more than half do so in the first two hours of cardiac arrest. No wonder there's so many ambulances screaming through the neighborhood at speeds that could, well, give you heart palpitation.

I accept the stop-and-go traffic, the clogged intersections, and the raised stress levels as minor inconvenience for the possibility of a life being saved.

The only problem is that, according to a 2008 study by the University of Washington-Harborview Center for Prehospital Emergency Care, 90 percent of patients die before reaching the hospital. I can only conclude that Emergency Medical Services suffer from a classic case of their reach exceeding their grasp.

In fact, in-transit communication of vital information is often misunderstood between paramedics and hospital personnel. That's why ambulances equipped with new technologies such as a digital transmission system have the advantage of direct readings and replies with the hospital. Likewise, a program at Emory University in Atlanta offers ambulance companies the ability to double their cardiac arrest survival rate. CARES, or Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival, details the improvements in technology and the training needed to attain optimal results.

It's nice to know that there's something to ensure that all the noise and confusion caused by ambulances can answer to a well-trained-and-connected medical service. It's stimulating to think that a program can make a big, albeit loud, difference in emergency preparedness.

It's life-affirming to believe that there are people who care more about what is going on inside ambulances than outside them.