VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — An app meant to help save lives has gone dark in Virginia Beach.
The city's EMS stopped using the "Pulse Point" app at the beginning of the month.
“It was designed and marketed to have public access to cardiac arrest cases, in the event somebody nearby also knew CPR and that they could go to that scene,” said Virginia Beach EMS Chief Bruce Nedelka.
Pulse Point is used in many cities across the 757, like Norfolk and Chesapeake.
Chief Nedelka said city officials stopped using the program on September 1.
“It only worked in public spaces, not private homes,” Chief Nedelka said. “And you had to be within a very small distance from the scene.”
Now, people on community Facebook pages are wondering why the app went dark. Some are posting that it kept them in the loop about what is happening around the city and knowing what areas to avoid.
Chief Nedelka pointed to funding. He said in 2018, council members voted to pay for three years at about $13,000 a year. Pulse Point then funded a year for free, but Nedelka said this year, they couldn’t find money to pay for the service.
“We have such a depth of response in this city. The decision was made if they can’t find the grant funding, it wasn’t a necessary app for us,” Nedelka said.
He said the app also didn’t provide much assistance to first responders.
“The four years we had it, there was only one documented case of a citizen actually responding to a scene and upon their arrival, CPR had already been started,” Nedelka said.
And more often than not, Nedelka said folks used the app as a scanner page because it reports more than cardiac arrests.
“It can be motorcycle crashes, car crashes, house fires,” Nedelka said.
If funding does become available Nedelka said VBEMS leaders would reconsider the service. But he said they recently got a ‘Mission: Lifeline Gold Plus’ rating from the American Heart Association, meaning their teams are responding to emergencies quickly and efficiently.
“Over several years, we have not just met, but we have exceeded goals in cardiac responses, cardiac arrests,” Nedelka said.
While the Pulse Point app no longer alerts users about emergencies in Virginia Beach, anyone curious can still find Virginia Beach EMS and Fire traffic on scanner websites like "Broadcastify."
However, Virginia Beach police transmissions are not available anywhere. Department leaders encrypted their channels at the end of July.