LOUISVILLE’S START THE HEART
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
Aaron Burch
T
he Greater Louisville Medical Society Foundation welcomed
the Start the Heart Foundation’s William C. Dillon, MD,
to The Old Medical School Building on Thursday, Aug. 14
for an informational seminar and compression-only CPR demonstration. Dr. Dillon, an interventional cardiologist with the Baptist
Medical Associates - Louisville Cardiology Group, founded the Start
the Heart Foundation to educate Louisville community members
about the dangers of cardiac arrest and the simple ways in which
an ordinary person can save a life.
In 2013, eight Louisville residents died from fires and fifty-one
died in homicides, but a staggering 750 people suffered from cardiac
arrests and 90 percent lost their lives.
“You hear almost nothing about this. Cardiac arrest doesn’t discriminate. It will kill anyone, anywhere at any time,” said Dr. Dillon.
He pointed to particularly troubling statistics for the city of Louisville, which has one of the lowest cardiac arrest survival rates in the
country, behind only four other major metropolitan areas: Detroit,
Chicago, New York City and Los Angeles.
www.starttheheartfoundation.org.
The foundation has received donations from Norton Healthcare
and Baptist Healthcare as well as the University of Louisville, Kentucky One and more.
Concluding the seminar, Dr. Dillon said, “If we could teach all the
ninth graders in Louisville for five years, we would reach 50,000 people. Over time, we can make a real impact and improve survival.”
Aaron Burch is the communications specialist for the Greater
Louisville Medical Society.
Number of Individuals Trained in CPR
Jefferson County, KY
“In our community, only about 20 percent of residents receive
bystander CPR training. In Seattle, for example, 70 percent receive
BCPR training and the city has a 50 percent cardiac arrest survival rate,” said Dr. Dillon (Louisville’s ranges from six to fourteen
percent).
With these statistics in mind, Dr. Dillon began the Start the Heart
Foundation with the goal of drastically increasing compression-only
CPR knowledge in Louisville. “We can’t save everyone, but we can
be doing a lot better than we are right now,” he said. The goal of the
foundation this year is to improve cardiac survival rates by teaching
CPR to every ninth grade student in Jefferson County. There are
10,000 ninth graders in Louisville across 32 schools, so Dr. Dillon
has a big job in front of him. However, he’s not working alone.
Joining the Start the Heart Foundation are three high school
interns who assist Dr. Dillon in teaching each session. The students
received professional CPR training from Louisville Metro EMS
CEO Neal Richmond and the CPR Center’s Janice Morgan. Over
the summer, the group taught approximately 1,700 community
residents. “We tried to start small. We knew we’d have a lot to learn,
we’d make some mistakes,” said Dr. Dillon.
With the first steps taken, Start the Heart is ready to expand going
into the 2014-2015 school year. New interns will be joining with the
start of a new school year. But the task before them can still appear
daunting. To assist with this project, Start the Heart Foundation
is looking for a few retired physicians who are willing to dedicate
time to become compression-only CPR facilitators.
Any physicians interested may find more information at
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LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
2013 Out-of-Hos