Inspiration

Every day over 100 Americans die from opioid overdose. After 4 minutes of being without oxygen, brain cells start to die and ambulances are often more than 4 minutes away. CPR and/or Narcan buys the patient more time before the ambulance gets there. We intend for this app to help reduce the number of deaths and give bystanders a chance to save lives.

What it does

Our app helps to increase survival rate of overdoses by facilitating the communication between someone reporting the incident and people nearby who are either CPR certified/ can administer Narcan. These people can register on the app and they will receive alerts and location information when someone nearby, within a given radius, presses the "Send Help" button.

How we built it

We started by building an app in Swift that gathered the iOS device's location. The next step was to send this data to a Firebase back end database during the "Send Help" action. "Helpers" were then able to receive the data and directions.

Challenges we ran into

Properly sending, receiving, and parsing data from the back end, and team members were learning Firebase and Swift on the fly.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Finishing the app while working with technologies that were very new to us. We all stayed up and worked together cohesively.

What we learned

How to use a JSON database, Swift's unique technicalities such as unwrapping Optionals, and we learned how to make a web page during the workshop. We also consulted medical professional peers for best practices in implementing this technology.

What's next for Respond First

Expand to more specialties for helpers (such as those who carry insulin or epipens), automate the process of verifying helpers, team up with American Heart Association so that newly certified helpers are automatically verified.

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