HYDERABAD: Did you know that citizen involvement in emergency care can increase survival rates by a whopping 40 percent? This staggering statistic inspired the launch of ‘First Responders’ a network of trained volunteers at CallAmbulance, an emergency response mobile app.
Using the advancement of technology to their benefit, Jagadish Vishwanatham and Umashankar Kotturu, the founders of this app, have created a platform to cater to medical emergencies. First Responders are citizens who are trained and equipped to stabilise and save victims before an ambulance arrives.
Next time an accident takes place in your vicinity, instead of feeling helpless as a silent spectator, you can do more than just call for an ambulance and help the victims instead, as a First Responder. Any able bodied and socially motivated citizen between the age group of 18-55 years, can sign up for this training. Lack of medical knowledge is not an obstacle as professional provide training in simple stabilisation techniques which can applied on the victim.
The duration of training will be around four hours and you can join by simply sending a WhatsApp message stating: ‘’your name="" for FR”, to +91-810-617-3902. Training provided will include basic life-saving skills like CPR and the Heimlich manoeuver will be given at a convenient centre.
Celebrities like singer Geeta Madhuri and RJ Manasa have received training and are now qualified First Responders. Actors Rana Daggubati, Prabhas, Aamir Khan and Vidya Balan have lent their support to the campaign. The initiative extends to every citizen a chance to be a Samaritan!
When a victim raises an alarm, an alert is triggered for a First Responder within a 1 km radius to which he/she can choose to respond.
The app enables users to call for an ambulance, send the exact location of the victim to the ‘Responder’ and also displays the nearest available hospitals to the users. The app, which aims to provide immediate care to the victim, is the brainchild of Empower M Mobility Solutions a Hyderabad-based start-up.
While currently catering to Hyderabad, the company hopes to make this initiative a pan-India movement and establish itself in two metropolitan cities with a subscriber base of 5 lakh + in the year 2017.
About the response the initiative has received, Jagadish Vishwanatham, one of the partners, says, “We already have about 1,000 people in the First Responder network. We also got an amazing response from citizens who want themselves to be trained. There has been extensive support from hospitals in Hyderabad which are willing to contribute to this initiative”.