Sudden cardiac arrest can happen anytime to anyone. When a heart stops beating, seconds matter. 

Your chance of surviving an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest varies from less than 5 percent to more than 60 percent depending on your location within the United States.  

That shocking statistic prompted Louisville Fire to launch an initiative in 2023 with a simple goal: Increase the likelihood that cardiac arrest victims in Louisville survive to return home from the hospital to their families, jobs and communities. 

We can’t do it alone. We need each link in the chain of survival – our 911 dispatchers, bystanders who perform CPR, our police officers, our firefighters and EMS providers, and our hospitals – to join us in moving this important initiative forward.   

Here’s what we’re doing at Louisville Fire:  

• Collecting, tracking, analyzing and reporting our cardiac arrest survival data.
  • What you measure, you can improve!
• Shaping our emergency response to reflect scientifically proven survival strategies.  
  • We use a “pit crew” approach — all members of the response team have a role.
• Training our city employees, police officers and community members in CPR.  
  • Join us for CPR classes on the second Saturday of each month.
• Debriefing with our crews after each cardiac arrest call, targeting areas we can do better. 

• Completing quarterly cardiac arrest drills with our crews. 

• Celebrating our survivors and recognizing bystanders who perform CPR. 

2022

• Survival rate: 1/13 or 8% 
• Bystander CPR rate: 58%

2023

• Survival rate: 1/5 or 20% 
• Bystander CPR rate: 57%

2024

• Survival rate: 5/14 or 36% 
• Bystander CPR rate: 87%

Your likelihood of surviving cardiac arrest goes down 10% per minute without CPR.  We rely on our bystanders in Louisville to help our patients survive cardiac arrest.   

*Data includes only non-traumatic cardiac arrest victims and excludes those with a valid Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) directive, whether or not CPR was started. Patients who got bystander CPR and had pulses upon EMS arrival are included.