A heart attack is deadly, and a victim's chances of survival heavily rely on how fast his/her can be restarted. Interestingly, Singapore has a found a way to battle this dilemma through a mobile phone app. Despite the potential this technology provides, it is unlikely to flourish in Hong Kong just yet.
The idea of using the app came after Dickson Yu Tak-shing suffered a heart attack while playing soccer two weeks ago. Fortunately for him, a teammate who is also a nurse saved him by using a heart defibrillator. The latter delivers an electric shock to restart the heart.
"The worst is over," the mother of the 28-year-old said after Yu regained consciousness two days after collapsing.
According to the South China Morning Post, if restarting a victim's heart fails within three to five minutes, there will be a lack of blood flow to the brain. This automatically condemns him to almost certain death.
As for those who survive, they are likely to suffer irreversible brain damage. To increase survival rates in Singapore, the city launched a mobile phone app in 2015 that alerts citizens with training in resuscitation to help heart attack victims nearby.
There is this notion that a similar app could increase survival rates in Hong Kong. This could also prove useful, especially since about 97 percent of individuals who have heart attacks die immediately if they are not already in a hospital.
The only catch, however, is that there is a lack of training, data, and civic-mindedness in Hong Kong. A heart specialist and honorary secretary of the Hong Kong College of Cardiology named Andy Chan Wai-kwong said that the metro needs to overcome these areas before such app can be utilized.
"I think the app is a very good initiative," Chan said. "It is widely used by citizens in Singapore but in Hong Kong, there are a few issues we should address before launching an app of this form."
The Singapore app, called myResponder, has been downloaded more than 92,000 times since mid-2015. In that time, more than 13,000 citizen rescuers have responded to alerts that someone within 400 meters of them has had a suspected heart attack and needs resuscitating. Interestingly, the app is also used by firefighters, so they can be alerted whenever there are nearby fires, The Strait Times reports.
