Think you’re at risk for cardiac arrest? Consider a move to Vancouver. Or, if you can swing it, aim to settle in Seattle. Canada’s national survival rate for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests is less than comforting: under five per cent, says the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada (HSF). But while the risk of cardiac arrest is the same across the country, the likelihood of survival is not.

When someone in Toronto has a cardiac arrest outside the hospital and receives emergency medical services treatment, the chance he will live to tell the tale is 5.5 per cent, according to a report published by the American Medical Association. But if the same person lives in Vancouver, his likelihood of living is nearly twice as high: 9.7 per cent. And he’d be better off yet if he lived in the cardiac champion of cities: Seattle, which reigns over North America at 16.3 per cent. These regional variations expose a host of deficiencies in Canada’s approach to cardiac arrest, the nation’s leading cause of death. What is surprising is, many of the failures come in to play not in the ambulance or the ER—but on the street, before paramedics even arrive. Continue…