Off-duty Santa Maria EMT rushes to woman in need of CPR thanks to phone app

If you want to save lives, now there’s an app for that. T he Pulse Point application sends alerts to your phone when someone in your vicinity is in need of CPR.

On Wednesday night, 19 year-old Cooper Lock got his first alert.

“I t sent me a text, it said CPR was needed. I came running over.”

The app said his help was needed at Mitchell Park in San Luis Obispo, just around the corner from where he was having dinner with his girlfriend’s family.

“I f you’re within 1000 yards of an emergency -whether it’s respiratory or cardiac arrest where you can do CPR- it’s gonna alert you.”

Lock is a Santa Maria EMT and a lifeguard, and he was eager to use his skills to help save a life.

“I t was interesting ’cause you don’t really know what to expect. Obviously dispatch isn’t talking to you or telling you what’s going on. I came to the park and couldn’t see where the patient was so I had to a do a bit of walking around.”

Eventually he found a woman in the Senior Center parking lot.

The 19 year-old said the patient was in respiratory arrest and CPR was not needed after all.

Emergency crews arrived at the scene soon after Lock got there and were able to help the patient.

But now the young EMT is encouraging others to download the app.

“A nyone who’s trained really should have it. It would really help the survivability.”

He looks forward to responding to more of these alerts.

“I t was a combo of exciting and scary. You train and you train and you train for things like that to happen, and then it happens -so the adrenaline goes.”

Cooper just started out as an EMT but said he might eventually look into becoming a firefighter.