The Bulletin
BEND, Ore. — You may have a better chance of surviving a heart attack just by living in Bend.
Last year, the Bend Fire Department boasted a 43 percent survival rate among cardiac arrest patients they responded to outside the hospital where another person witnessed the event and the patient had a shockable rhythm, meaning a defibrillator could be used. That’s 4½ times higher than the national out-of-hospital survival rate of 9.5 percent reported by the American Heart Association that year . It’s also more than double the department’s survival rate in the previous year.
“To see it improve that much was stellar,” said Petar Hossick, an engineer and a paramedic with Bend Fire, “and this year — the year hasn’t ended, so we don’t know — but we’re probably on track to beat that.”
Read full story: Bend Fire doubles cardiac arrest survival rate