Dubai, 17 October 2026: Life Pulse Volunteer Team (Kingdom of Bahrain) presented two scientific abstracts at the 4th Arab Resuscitation Council Scientific Conference (ArRC 2026), held in Dubai from 15 to 17 October 2026. Both posters were presented by Safiya Hamada, Head of the Medical and First Aid Committee and Board Member, during the scientific poster sessions attended by researchers and clinicians from across the Arab region.
The participation builds on the team's work since 2014 in promoting CPR awareness and community emergency response in Bahrain, and turns years of volunteer field experience into documented scientific knowledge that can be shared with the regional research community.
Safiya Hamada in front of the Enqedh Beyadak poster
Abstract 1: Enqedh Beyadak, 8,500 people trained in CPR in 36 months
The first abstract (AS-ArRC-2026-00093) is a retrospective programme review of Enqedh Beyadak ("save with your hands"), a community CPR training programme launched by the team in 2023 as an unfunded, volunteer-led Bahraini response to three barriers identified with imported curricula: linguistic disconnection from a predominantly young Arabic-speaking population, music-based teaching aids incompatible with religious settings, and slide-based delivery inconsistent with the ILCOR 2025 multimedia recommendations.
The programme is anchored by a professionally filmed simulation set on a Bahraini football field and narrated in the local dialect, delivered in sessions under 60 minutes focused on compression-only CPR and AED use, with a curriculum endorsed through the National Civil Protection Platform. Between January 2023 and May 2026 it trained approximately 8,500 people across nine community sectors, including corporate workforces (2,700), public mall outreach (1,800), religious community events (900) and schools (2,500+ in 50 schools), as well as kindergartens, scouts, industrial workers and Civil Defense personnel, a reach equivalent to nearly 2% of the adult citizen population.
Authors: Dr. Yusuf Alkhayyat, Mohamed Alsharqi, Safiya Hamada.
Abstract 2: From worst to best, two out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Bahrain
The second abstract (AS-ArRC-2026-00092) documents two out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Bahrain managed by Life Pulse community first responders in July 2024, representing the two extremes of the chain of survival. In both cases the responders arrived with a portable AED, started CPR immediately and applied the device within one minute. In the first case the collapse was unwitnessed, with an estimated downtime of about ten minutes, and resuscitation was unsuccessful despite feedback-device-documented quality (chest compression fraction above 90%). In the second case the collapse was witnessed, the pulse returned in under five minutes after a single shock, and the patient was handed over to EMS conscious, received intensive care and coronary catheterisation, and was discharged from hospital.
The authors conclude that patient-related factors, witnessed status and initial rhythm, rather than the quality of resuscitation, were the main determinants of outcome, and that organised community first responder programmes can deliver guideline-quality CPR and defibrillation, in a country where the 2024 national cohort study reported 30-day survival of 1.2% and no documented bystander AED use.
Authors: Mohamed Alsharqi, Dr. Yusuf Alkhayyat, Safiya Hamada.
Statement from the Team President
"We are proud of people who never settle for what they have achieved, and always look ahead. Years of volunteer field work have become two scientific abstracts presented on behalf of Bahrain at a regional conference, and this is the model we want for every volunteer in Life Pulse."
Ebtisam Ali Al-Dubaini, President, Life Pulse Volunteer Team
From the conference
Download the scientific posters
Research and scientific partnership enquiries: alsharqi@lifepulse.bh