National nonprofit Six Minutes to Live seeks to educate Santa Cruz community in emergency responses to cardiac arrest

Hilary Gates was living in Washington, D.C., in 1999 when she encountered a frightening scene on her street: a 21-year-old college student collapsed on the ground from a sudden cardiac arrest. Bystanders rushed to her aid and called 911, only to discover the nearby fire station couldn’t send help in time. After 12 agonizing minutes, paramedics arrived on scene and connected the college student to a defibrillator — six minutes too late for her to survive. 

Gates said she felt helpless as she watched the tragedy unfold, which inspired her to switch careers from teaching high school to paramedicine, and to found the national grassroots organization Six Minutes to Live, along with emergency medical services chief Tom Bouthillet and journalist Bob Davis.

Gates, who moved to Santa Cruz 18 months ago, partnered with the Santa Cruz County Fire Chiefs Association to launch a Santa Cruz County chapter of the nonprofit in February, to honor American Heart Month. This initiative seeks to educate the community about hands-only CPR and identify nearby automated external defibrillators (AEDs) for bystanders to administer emergency aid.

“I have had a lot of experiences with people in cardiac arrest, but also people who are grieving, people who need help and vulnerable populations,” said Gates. “I consider people who are suffering from things like this as a population that needs our help, and I want to encourage everyone to care about each other.”

According to the American Heart Association, more than 350,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur annually in the U.S., with over 70% occurring in homes or residences.

Santa Cruz Fire Chief Rob Oatey said that before the COVID-19 pandemic, the county’s out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival rate was significantly higher than the national average, but those numbers started to drop after the pandemic. Gates attributes this decrease to restrictions during the pandemic of not being able to make physical contact.

“There were a number of EMS professionals in the county that started discussing ways in which we could engage the community to increase that number,” said Oatey, who noted that other cities also saw cardiac arrest survival rates drop in recent years.

Six Minutes to Live and the Santa Cruz County Fire Chiefs Association has also partnered with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office and the county Emergency Medical Care Commission to deliver accessible bystander CPR and AED training while promoting awareness and placement of AEDs in public spaces around Santa Cruz County. 

Oatey recalled when he first connected with Gates last year: “It was just a natural partnership. Our job as fire chiefs is to provide safety, security and an emergency response to the community, and so this just made sense and actually became sort of a passion project for me.”

Oatey promptly signed on to be co-chair of the Six Minutes to Live Santa Cruz project.

“It’s another way for us to not only meet the community where they are at, but empower them to do something for their family member or their friends in a time of need and become partners with us in life safety,” said Oatey.

The Six Minutes to Live Santa Cruz project has received donations of AEDs and CPR equipment, as well as countless volunteer hours from county residents. The nonprofit is looking into partnering with the Dominican Hospital Foundation to purchase defibrillators and other training equipment.

“When I moved here, I quickly figured out that the people in Santa Cruz really care about each other and it’s an incredibly genuine, compassionate group of folks who live here,” said Gates. “They want to help each other, and I want to leverage that feeling and say, ‘Let’s do even more than we’re already doing to help each other, especially in a time of need.’”