The archive · Public & Social · Operational decision · 2017–2020
Denmark Heart Runner app alerts the nearest citizens before ambulances arrive
TrygFonden and Copenhagen EMS built an app that alerts nearby CPR-trained volunteers to cardiac arrests; 61,540 Danes now run to help.
TrygFonden
What it had to solve
Around 5,000 people in Denmark have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest every year, and survival drops sharply for every minute that passes without CPR or defibrillation — yet ambulances typically take about eight to nine minutes to arrive. Trained volunteers were often nearby, but nothing told them to act.
How it works
When a heart stops, brain cells begin dying within three to five minutes, and survival falls sharply with every minute before CPR or a defibrillator shock. Danish ambulances typically arrive in about eight to nine minutes — fast by international standards, but often past the minutes that matter most. Thousands of Danes were trained in CPR, yet nothing connected them to the emergencies happening around them.
In 2017 TrygFonden and the Copenhagen Emergency Medical Services introduced the Heart Runner programme in the Capital Region. Anyone over 18 can register in the TrygFonden Hjerteløber app; when a cardiac-arrest call reaches dispatch, the emergency operator decides whether the situation would benefit from volunteers and alerts up to twenty registered heart runners within about five kilometres. Runners choose whether to accept, and those who do are directed to the scene or to the nearest registered AED.
The idea treats trained bystanders as a dispatchable resource instead of waiting for an ambulance to travel from a station. The programme expanded nationwide in 2020, and registrations kept climbing: more than 117,000 people had signed up by February 2022.
In the first half of 2026, 61,540 Danes were registered as active heart runners — 1.3 percent of the adult population. When a cardiac arrest was reported, the first runner reached the patient in an average of 3:30, compared with an ambulance response of eight to nine minutes, giving CPR and defibrillation a realistic chance of starting in the critical window.
Why it lands
- It uses a resource that already exists — trained neighbours — instead of waiting for a vehicle to travel from a station.
- Dispatch decides case by case and volunteers choose whether to accept, so alerts are targeted rather than noisy.
- Guiding runners to the nearest registered AED links the crowd to a nationwide defibrillator network.
- Measured response times give a civic idea a concrete public-health result rather than a vague promise.
What it did
By February 2022 more than 117,000 Danes had registered as heart runners; in the first half of 2026, 61,540 were active — 1.3 percent of the adult population — and the first runner reached the patient in an average of 3:30, roughly half the ambulance response time.
What you can take
The scarce resource in an emergency is minutes, not ambulances: systems that mobilize the people already nearby can outperform ones that add more vehicles.
Since then
The Heart Runner programme spread from the Capital Region to all of Denmark by 2020 and kept growing: more than 117,000 people had registered by February 2022, and TrygFonden reported a record 61,540 active heart runners in the first half of 2026. In that report, the first runner reached patients in an average of 3:30, and medical researchers pointed to the gap between volunteer and ambulance arrival times as the reason the network matters. The scheme stayed voluntary and free, with the app and the registered-AED network run through TrygFonden's hjertestarter.dk hub.
Sources
- New record: 61,540 civilian "heart runners" ensure fast help in case of cardiac events
- Denmark's Heart Runners
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