Kerkrade Heart Safe

The municipality of Kerkrade has taken care to increase its residents' chances of surviving heart failure. To achieve this, the municipality of Kerkrade, in cooperation with the Kerkrade Healthy Foundation, has built the "Kerkrade Hartveilig" citizen aid system, in which trained volunteers are deployed to resuscitate people in need with the help of special devices called AEDs, or defibrillators. We call these volunteers citizen rescuers. 

Also become a citizen helper? Sign up

Both people with and without a BHV certificate are welcome. The training to become a citizen helper is offered free of charge by the municipality of Kerkrade. 

Kerkrade Heart Safe is a system of citizens and resources

The outdoor AEDs present in Kerkrade are connected to the alarm system of the 112 emergency room. The emergency room works with the alarm system HartslagNu. This system is fully automated and the trained volunteers of Kerkrade Hartveilig are included in a database of HartslagNu. If necessary, volunteers receive an SMS or WhatsApp message with a call to resuscitate and defibrillate. HartslagNu also records which volunteers are due for refresher training and renewal of registration. So in the event of an emergency, the victim is assured of help from adequately trained volunteers.

How does Kerkrade Heart Safe work?

When heart failure is reported via the national emergency number 112, HeartbeatNow searches for the nearest registered civilian emergency responders and AEDs in a targeted and fast manner.

Two types of calls are sent simultaneously via the mobile:

1. Available civilian responders within a radius of approximately 500 meters of the victim receive a message calling, "Go to the next address and start CPR."
2. Available citizen responders within a radius of approximately 400 meters from the AED facility and the victim will receive a message calling, "Go to the AED at the following address and take it to the victim at the next address."

Both messages show the date and time of the emergency call. At that moment, the called volunteers determine whether they are actually nearby and able to provide assistance. Because more citizen-helpers are called, there is a good chance that at least one citizen-helper will start CPR and one citizen-helper will pick up the AED.