How Erie County will become a HEARTSafe community by 2025

Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Erie County officials are working with the American Heart Association, the Buffalo Bills and UBMD Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine and others to ensure county residents know how to respond to cardiac emergencies and become a HEARTSafe community.

"This is not something that just easily could be done, nor could be done solely by Erie County. We have at this point, more than 150 partner organizations that we are working with, and of course, the American Heart Association and the Buffalo Bills are two key ones, but there are many others that we're working with to try to reach certification, to ensure that we as a community are properly trained to address issues," said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz on Friday.

The HEARTsafe Community program establishes guidelines to enhance the response to sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) emergencies by targeting training, preparation, and response protocols.

Erie County Commissioner of Health Dr. Gale Burstein explained there's a number of steps required to complete the HEARTSafe community certification, which includes training 145,000 Erie County residents (15 percent) in hands-only CPR.

"We're not only are we going to be giving 15% of our Erie County residents this life saving training, we're also working to expand access to AEDs and in public spaces and on the healthcare infrastructure side of things for hospitals and EMS to reduce the time between first compression and the first shock they will get there."

Since the announcement, over 2,000 people were trained at the Erie County Fair in CPR, and in the last 6 months, the Buffalo Bills' Heartbeat Initiative has trained over 12,000 people at 100 training events as well. The county's initiative also includes public education and awareness campaigns.

At the Buffalo Bills Home Opener on Sunday, September 8, from the morning until game time, the American Heart Association and UB trainers will offer hands-only CPR training on the "Billevard" at Highmark Stadium. Fans, vendors and visitors can stop by this station to get trained and help reach the community goal.

"There are approximately 1000 out of hospital cardiac arrests in the United States every day, and only about 10% of these survive. With bystander CPR, a person's chance of survival is increased by two to three times," notes Dr. Leslie Bisson, medical director of the Buffalo Bills and president of UBMD Orthopedics and Sports Medicine.

You can find more information at Erie County's HEARTSafe .