A case of civil courage in Zug

Tamara Doswald suddenly found herself fighting for the life of a stranger in a hairdressing salon in Baar,. What her actions reveal about civil courage.

Tamara Doswald is curious by nature. On a September evening last year, as she was on her way home after a long day at work, the then 17-year-old was looking at shop windows in Baar, as she often did. She stopped in front of a hair salon. Inside, she saw a person lying motionless on the floor. Seconds later, Tamara was kneeling over the lifeless figure, whose face was pale, turning blue. No breath. No heartbeat. Tamara didn’t hesitate. She called an ambulance and began CPR, just as she has practised a thousand times.

Around 130 people suffer cardiac arrest in the canton of Zug every year. With every minute that passes, their chance of survival decreases by ten per cent, according to the canton's website. This is nothing new to Tamara Doswald. The 18-year-old from Neuheim is training to be a healthcare professional. It's a childhood dream. From an early age, she was an enthusiastic ‘family emergency doctor’. ‘I always treated my brothers' grazes myself. They weren't allowed to go outside without having their wounds disinfected,’ she says with a grin.

Suddenly, every second counts
Tamara attributes her interest in medicine to her family. ‘My grandma was also a nurse. Maybe it's in my blood.’ Her mother works for Samaritan Switzerland, an organisation that offers first aid courses and provides medical services, and Tamara herself has been involved there since she was eight years old. As a youth leader, she shows children how to apply plasters, put someone in the recovery position and respond correctly to cardiac arrest. First aid, she says, is a matter of general knowledge and observation.

Tamara has long since internalised one principle from her training: ‘You’re only doing something wrong if you do nothing.’ This was also the case in the hairdressing salon, where she saved a life for the first time. Tamara remembers exactly the moment when the body beneath her hands was no longer made of plastic, as in the exercises, but of skin, bones and life. ‘I just went into autopilot,’ she says. Thirty compressions, two breaths. She doesn't remember how many times. After 15 minutes, the ambulance arrived, and the person survived.

In May, Tamara Doswald was awarded the Carnegie Medal for Civil Courage for her actions. For Andreas Stettbacher, Federal Council delegate for medical services, Tamara is an example of courage, humanity and responsibility, even in the most difficult moments. Tamara Doswald says simply: ‘I just reacted because I knew what to do.’

Tamara Doswald's motto: ‘You’re only doing something wrong if you do nothing.’
She was awarded the Carnegie Medal for Civil Courage for her courageous first aid efforts in Baar.               Photos: Matthias Jurt
Several defibrillators are stationed at Baar railway station – recognisable by the heart symbols on the platform.                 defikarte.ch

What Zug can learn from Ticino
Tamara doesn’t know whether the person in the Baar hairdressing salon would have survived even without her use of her medical knowledge. ‘I think it makes a difference whether you practise regularly or attend a three-hour course every ten years or so.’ She would like to see more people learning or refreshing their first aid skills. How many people in the canton of Zug are resuscitated? ‘Too few,’ she is certain.

But that could soon change. From June 2025, the canton will introduce its own ‘first responder’ system. In future, anyone who can reach the scene of an emergency faster than the emergency services will be alerted via an app. The requirements are a valid BLS-AED certificate, an introductory course and a willingness to act in an emergency. Insurance, training and equipment are largely covered by the canton. For Tamara Doswald, this is a long overdue step. She draws a comparison with Italian-speaking Switzerland: ‘For years now, you have had the best chance of survival if you have a cardiac arrest in Ticino, Switzerland. That's because there are the most trained first responders there.’ Many of them even carry their own defibrillators.

Looking back, Tamara is moved: by her mother's encouragement and by the gratitude showed by the emergency services. And not least by the person she saved, who later thanked her personally and invited her out for dinner. When it mattered, Tamara acted reflexively. Today, she knows that civil courage doesn’t only start in an emergency. It begins with listening, with preparation. And sometimes with a glance through a shop window.

In the event of cardiac arrest: use of a defibrillator
A defibrillator, or defib for short, is a medical device used in cases of cardiac arrest. It detects life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias such as ventricular fibrillation and can interrupt them with an electric shock. Automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are specially designed for laypeople. They give clear voice instructions, guide you step by step through the application and only deliver the shock when medically necessary.

These devices are also available throughout the canton of Zug. Their locations can be found on the interactive platform defikarte.ch.