Would $10,000 Get 2012 Off To A Great Start? Join The My Heart Map Challenge

Hi – Laura here from CPRCertificationGuide.com. I am so excited as not only am I going to give you the chance to make a lot of cash but it could also help save lives.

Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it?

But it is not! This is not a scam. Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia has launched the MyHeartMap Challenge. As many of you may know I am a big fan of the Perelman School. They do a lot of very valuable research into various medical conditions not just cardiac arrest although that is my specific area of interest.

So what do you have to do to potentially win this $10,000?

You must be based in Philadelphia for a start but all you have to do is locate AED devices and take pictures of them with your mobile phone. It starts in mid January and lasts for a month. In that time frame, you either acting alone or with a team must locate as many AED devices as possible. Every one you find has to be photographed so that the Penn team can meet their goal of building a registry of these devices.

Studies show that the early use of AED’s are crucial in the chain of survival but often people simply do not know where the nearest defibrillator is. Unlike internal AED’s, the external variety are not tagged and therefore there could be one in the building where someone has a cardiac arrest. But it may remain unused as nobody is aware of it least of all the first aid responder trying to deal with the emergency by phone.

Penn Medical researchers hope that by involving the general public they will be able to build a full database of the location of all automated external devices in the state. In order to make the competition even more interesting, some devices will carry an extra reward. If you discover these particular devices you will be rewarded with $50.

Not based in Philadelphia?

No neither am I but we can still get involved. This is a great cause not to mention a very valuable prize that would help a lot of families make 2012 extra special. You are probably in contact with people on Facebook or Twitter that are. Let them know about this amazing challenge and they may even let you share in their winnings!

Anything we can do to raise awareness of this campaign will help. We will get the benefit of knowing that we are doing something to help the victims of cardiac arrest. Less than 10% of victims currently survive and we all need to do our best to change these statistics.

And who knows, maybe our state may be the next one to offer a similar challenge?