This is kinda like Domo , except instead of matching up people who like manga and Mountain Dew Throwback with one another, it notifies individuals who can perform CPR when someone in walking distance requires life-saving resuscitation, as well as listing the locations of nearby defibrillators.
The function is actually part of a more comprehensive app released by the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District. But the CPR buddy system option is a really interesting function of the app- users can opt-in if they are able to perform the life-saving procedure. When a call comes in indicating a person in distress in a public place requires CPR, says San Ramon Valley Fire Protection information officer Kimberly French, CPR-capable users get a push notification:
“If you’re at Starbucks and next door at the deli somebody goes down, you’re getting a notification,” French said. “You’re that close to the person needing the assistance.”
The potentially life-saving app sprang from an incident in which San Ramon Valley’s Fire Chief Richard Price observed an emergency vehicle responding to a situation next door to where he and some companions in the IT field were dining:
“It was surprising — disturbing I would say — that somebody could be in great need so close,” Price said. “One of the IT guys is a paramedic, I [had] a defibrillator in my car; we’re all CPR trained and we could have made a difference, but were unaware of it.”
This isn’t the only time location-based apps have been applied for emergency situations. Last spring, Foursquare users near Times Square were pinged when a bomb scare prompted an evacuation . Twitter has, of course, been instrumental in dispersing information during recent events like the earthquake in Japan and incidents of unrest in the Middle East , but location aware apps take the real-time element a step further by targeting the information directly to people who are nearby and most likely to use or need it.
See? Social media: it’s not all pissing contents over mayorships.
