CUMBERLAND COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) — A Midstate organization is partnering with a California company to help save lives, starting with Cumberland County. It is all about reducing the response time to cardiac arrest.

The Peyton Walker Foundation is spearheading the 4 Minute City program in Cumberland County, with the goal of having an AED within four minutes of any cardiac arrest. The first 25 AEDs were given out Tuesday during training for CARE team members.

Peyton Walker Foundation executive director Julie Walker said new technology is finally allowing this to happen.

“The goal is to have this device, the pads from this device on someone’s chest within four minutes,” Walker said.

In a sudden cardiac arrest, every second counts.

“Typical response times when somebody’s on the phone and you call 911, it could be eight minutes, it could be 15 minutes,” Walker said.

She says that is too long. Walker lost her 18-year-old daughter Peyton to sudden cardiac arrests a decade ago. She started the Peyton Walker Foundation to raise awareness about sudden cardiac arrests, and now she is trying to save other families.

“Survival rates have typically been less than 10 percent for sudden cardiac arrest, and this is going to hopefully shift that needle tremendously in the right direction,” Walker said.

Walker is partnering with San Francisco-based company Avive Solutions to get 300 AEDs into the community in Cumberland County.

“Time to intervention with CPR and ultimately a life-saving shock from an AED is the difference between life and death,” Avive Solutions CEO Sameer Jafri said.

Jafri said Avive’s AEDs are unique — they are WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS enabled and connect to local 911 call centers.

“They (911 operators) can actually press a button and activate all of the AEDs that are nearby the location of that cardiac arrest,” Jafri explained.

Walker said that connection has been the missing piece in community response.

“I have AEDs in my home, but if my neighbor had a cardiac arrest, I would never know,” she said.

Now that has changed. Avive’s AEDs alert people about an emergency, direct them to the cardiac arrest patient and walk them through what to do.

“This little device is going to cause someone to have another birthday, maybe walk their child down the aisle,” Nathan Harig, Assistant Chief of Cumberland Goodwill EMS, said.

Harig said he remembers a cardiac arrest being one of his first calls as a 16-year-old firefighter. He said a program like 4 Minute City is a crucial part of emergency response.

“You need everyone involved for someone to live if they suffer some cardiac arrest,” he said.

Now, 25 more people in Cumberland County have AEDs and are prepared to save lives.

“We paid the ultimate price in the fact that we lost our daughter to cardiac arrest, but what a gift to be tied to this incredible legacy in Peyton’s name,” Walker said.

The remaining 275 Cumberland County AEDs will roll out in October, and after that, Walker said it is time to bring the program to Dauphin County.

Avive Solutions also has an app that has similar functions as their AEDs — people can set up alerts for emergencies, navigate there and use their own AEDs or begin other life-saving measures like CPR. For more information and to get involved with the 4 Minute City program, visit 4minutePA.org.