This Heart Failure Awareness Week, ask yourself something your workplace probably never has.
You know the sound of the fire alarm. You know the drill. Walk calmly to the nearest exit. Assemble at the designated point. Wait for the all-clear.
You do this regularly. Probably quarterly. Maybe even monthly. Some workplaces test their fire alarms every single week.
“Cardiac arrest is silent. It happens at a desk. In a meeting room. By the coffee machine or in the stair well”
And rightly so. Fire kills. Fire destroys. Preparation saves lives.
Now answer this: When was the last cardiac arrest drill at your workplace?
Not a First Aid course you took three years ago. Not an online module you clicked through. An actual scenario. A dummy on the floor. Someone running for the AED. Someone calling 999 or 112. Someone starting CPR. All against the clock.
When was the last time you practiced that?
The gap in our safety culture
Fire is visible, and its dramatic, triggering immediate action.
Cardiac arrest is silent. It happens at a desk. In a meeting room. By the coffee machine or in the stair well. One moment someone is there. The next, they are slumped in their chair, not breathing.
In that moment, there is no alarm. No flashing light. No scheduled drill.
There is only the person next to them, and whatever training they happen to have.
The 2024 Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Register (OHCAR) recorded 2,885 cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests where resuscitation was attempted. Of these patients, an 8% survival rate was seen following intervention.
Most workplaces have an AED now. The Health and Safety Act (2016) advise it. Social conscience demands it. But having a device on the wall is not the same as being ready to use it.
The 10% rule
Every minute without defibrillation reduces survival by 10%. A four-minute delay means losing nearly half the chance to save a life.
In a fire drill, those minutes matter. That is why we practice.
In a cardiac arrest, those minutes matter more. So why is it not practiced?
How far we’ve come, and how far we still need to go
At the start of the new Millennium, there were no public access AEDs and less than 1% (estimated, as this was before OCHAR) survived cardiac arrest in Ireland. The investment in AED and CPR training has brought us a long way
In other words, an extra 4 double decker bus loads of people are being saved every year, and there are more lives that can still be saved.
The fear of being unprepared
No one expects a fire. But everyone expects to know what to do if one happens.
No one expects a cardiac arrest at work. But right now, most employees would hesitate. Not from lack of caring but from lack of practice.
Where is your nearest AED? How do you open it? Have the pads expired? Who calls the emergency services? Does someone run to meet the ambulance?
These are not theoretical questions. They are life or death procedures. And like fire drills, they need rehearsing.
A simple start
Cardiac arrest scenario training does not need to be elaborate. Ten minutes. A training manikin. The actual AED from the wall. One scenario: someone collapses. What do you do?
Run it once. Then run it again. Time it. Improve it.
Fire drills are not about fear. They are about muscle memory. Cardiac arrest drills should be no different.
In 2024, bystander CPR was attempted in 84% of cardiac arrests which were not witnessed by members of the Emergency Medical Services. Attempted defibrillation before the arrival of Emergency Medical Services has increased to 12% of all patients, but there is more that can be done.
This week, ask the question
Heart Failure Awareness Week is about understanding that heart conditions can turn into emergencies without warning. Workplaces are not immune. Offices, factories, warehouses, retail floors, schools every setting has a heart that could stop. This is not a possibility. It is a statistical certainty.
So, this week, ask your manager or your safety officer.
“We have a fire drill next month. Can we also run a five-minute cardiac arrest scenario?”
The answer should be yes. If it is not, ask why.
Because one day maybe tomorrow, maybe in ten years the alarm will not sound. There will be no drill. There will only be a colleague, a clock, and whatever preparation you have done.
Fire drills save lives. Cardiac arrest drills save lives too.
It is time to treat them the same way.
Top image: Photo by Richard Bell on Unsplash
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