Android App Review: St John NZ

Apparently more than nine people go into cardiac arrest every day in New Zealand, and their chances of survival are not high. If it happened to someone near you would you know what to do to help them? Me neither, but the St John NZ app increases their chances by explaining how to do CPR in a way anyone can follow.

Whether or not you've had first aid training, when you find yourself in an emergency situation it's easy to panic or freeze up. The St John app lessens this risk by taking you through the CPR process in simple, straightforward steps.

On the home screen you're presented with options for adult, child or infant CPR tutorials. Each one goes through what you should do in basic, one-action-per-screen steps, with an accompanying illustration. I've never had to do CPR in real life, but looking at the instructions in the app I feel like I could probably make a go of it. And of course that's the point – highly trained medical staff don't need this app, but when someone goes into cardiac arrest those trained medical staff might not be around, and their best hope of rescue could be some schlub like me with no experience and a smart-phone.

When you get up to the bit with actual chest-pushing stuff (like I said, I really don't know what I'm talking about here) you don't just have written instructions and illustrations. The app also gives you the option of 'CPR Timing Assist' which beeps and vibrates at the rate you're meant to be compressing.

The other thing the app features is one-button calling for 111 Emergency Services on the home screen, and again in the CPR instructions when it's time to call for help. There's also the option to replace 111 with another emergency number, in case you take your phone overseas.

There's not a lot to the app, but anything more would be unnecessary and distracting. This is all you need to help you help someone who needs it, presented as clearly as possible.

Hopefully you'll never actually have any use for this app. But get it anyway – it costs you nothing, it doesn't take up too much space on your phone, and what if one day you find yourself in a situation where someone's life depends on you being able to give them CPR? Maybe you won't need the app, but maybe you will, and if you get it just in case you could potentially save a life.