Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is one of the leading causes of death in this country. According to the American Heart Association, SCA claims the lives of over 250,000 people die each year, more than all forms of cancer combined.
Many SCA victims would be alive today if the community in which they lived had a strong cardiac chain of survival (early call to 911, immediate initiation of CPR, early defibrillation, and early access to advanced cardiac life support).
On average, there are < number > cases of SCA each year in < community >. Unfortunately, survival rates from treatable cases of cardiac arrest in < community > average only ____ percent.
We can and must do better. As many as one-third to one-half of SCA victims could be saved if more citizens in our community were trained in CPR and if more small, battery-powered automated external defibrillators called AEDs were available to reduce the time from collapse to treatment.
Early CPR and defibrillation programs implemented in other parts of the country have achieved survival rates as high as 30 to 45 percent for treatable cases of SCA. In < name of community >, for example, survival rates increased from ____ to ____ after it implemented an AED program.
We believe there is an urgent need to ensure that SCA victims in our community have access to this critical lifesaving treatment. By improving such access we hope to save an average of < number > lives each year. One of the lives saved might be yours or your child's.
Members of the < Name of AED Committee >
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