We are here to help people save lives.

Six million people worldwide die every year due to sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), with 68% of these events occurring in the home. Many of the victims of SCA have no prior history of heart disease. While many people have a basic concept of how to perform CPR, they may fail to act due to the stress of the event or uncertainty in how to act, or due to not understanding how to perform CPR correctly. Lives are being needlessly lost. Further complicating matters, and adding to the stress of at-home SCAs, in the last year and with the onset of COVID, many Emergency Medical Services (including NYC EMS) had issued orders to not perform CPR in the case of a pulseless victim.

Saving lives: A groundbreaking approach

The Rithem Life Science team has responded to these challenges by developing two groundbreaking devices. Firstly, they developed the ResQR—a CPR aid that assists in the delivery of “hands-only” Quality CPR. Second, they developed the JoltzAED—the smallest, lightest and most affordable fully-functioning AED (automatic external defibrillation) unit, an integral part of the CPR protocol. These two devices have the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives each year.

During sudden cardiac arrest, each passing minute of delayed medical intervention increases the risk of death by a staggering ten percent. Intervention absolutely must be initiated within two to four minutes, but emergency services generally take from six to twelve minutes to arrive. The shocking fact is that only eight percent of people who suffer an SCA outside a hospital setting survive. We recognized the urgent necessity to develop easy-to-use, practical, at-home devices to fill this frightening gap in healthcare.