Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is an under-appreciated health crisis in Canada. Every year paramedics respond to an estimated 60,000 Canadians experiencing a SCA. However, even in the best communities, only 5%‒7% of SCA cases attended to by paramedics survive to return home. When a person collapses from a SCA, it must be recognized before anyone can call 9-1-1 or bystanders or family members can start cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). It is difficult in many cases for 9-1-1 dispatchers to correctly identify a cardiac arrest over the phone and be able to recommend the use of CPR or an AED to bystanders. Furthermore, in more than 75% of all SCAs, no one is there to witness the event, and survival is near 0%. This tragic number of deaths—more than 42,000 annually—is second only to cancer, and exceeds those from the current opioid crisis and the first year of the SARS CoV-2 pandemic combined.