Life-Saving Drone Could Provide Help Faster than an Ambulance

Swedish startup Flypulse has come up with tech to save heart attack victims.

June 19, 2017 5:00 am

Drone technology may be a life-saver—literally.

According to the American Heart Association (AHA), more than 350,000 people suffer from cardiac arrest outside of a hospital in the United States alone each year.

Time is very much of the essence in getting defibrillation to the victim.

So the Swedish startup Flypulse developed an automated drone that can deliver life-saving equipment four times faster than an ambulance. Flypulse’s LifeDrone-AED would allow for first responders to get the technology to the victims long before they may be able to arrive in person themselves.

Jacob Hollenberg, of the Karolinska Insitute in Sweden, set up the test of the drone. He and his team reported in the American Medical Association that the drone’s average flight time was 5 minutes, 25 seconds, compared to the 22 minutes that it took an ambulance to the same location.

This is not the only potentially life-saving drone in the works from Flypulse. The company is also developing the LifeDrone-WATER to aid in the location and assistance of drowning victims, as well as the LifeDrone-FIRE that will provide “fire and incident overview” according to Futurism.

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