Support AED's for NJ Youth Sports

 

    Since our son, Michael, passed away while playing Organized Youth Roller Hockey, we have a vested interest in seeing these two bills, A3500 and S1973 passed. These two bills state that any organized Youth Athletic events that take place on a Public field, ie a School, or Recreation Department property need to have AED's  present within a 3 minute window and a designated person who is trained in CPR and AED use be at all events. It also states that students grades 6-12 be trained in CPR and AED use. This was in 2015 and Gov Christi vetoed our bill. 

   Now, Senator Beach of District 6 and Assemblywoman Murphy of District 7 have reintroduced S2001 & A2505 The Michael Fisher Law. It is currently in committee and needs a push to get out of Committee. Please reach out to Assemblewoman Sumter & Senator Vitali to get this up for vote in their committees.

 

   We would ask that all New Jersey Residents, please, contact your State Reps here. 

 

   Through our Foundation we have provided AED's to the Dennis Twp Youth Hockey Association, Middle Twp Youth Hockey Association, the Atlantic City Rescue Mission, and Lower Twp High School Athletic Department. By passing these 2 Bills all Organized Youth Sports would be required to have AED's on hand for all practices and games. While we never hope to have to use these AED's on anyone, do we really want our children's life to be lost because a relatively cheap device wasn't available?

 

A prompt, appropriate medical response nearly doubles the likelihood of survival among competitive young athletes who suffer a sudden cardiac arrest during exercise, a new study shows.

The research, published in Sports Health, was led by Jonathan Drezner, a professor of family medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He directs UW Medicine’s Center for Sports Cardiology.

The study encompassed 132 events of sudden cardiac arrest during a two-year span across the United States. The athletes’ average age was 16, and nearly all events (93 percent) were witnessed by bystanders. Among the athletes, 64 (48 percent) survived. But in the subset of cases in which an automated external defibrillator (AED) was onsite and used during resuscitation, 89 percent survived.

“Exercise-related sudden cardiac arrest is almost always a survivable event when you have prompt recognition by witnesses, proper resuscitation and an AED close by,” Drezner said. “Forty-eight percent is far better than the overall survival rate for sudden cardiac arrest in the U.S. But this data tells me that a lot of young athletes we should be saving are dying.”

Drezner has advocated for more public funding for AEDs in high schools in Seattle and Washington state, and has facilitated free electrocardiogram (EKG) screenings of thousands of high school athletes.

Getting AEDs placed at school gyms and playfields, and ensuring that coaches and athletic trainers are familiar with signs of cardiac arrest, will create the life-saving possibilities that young athletes deserve, he said.

“We should be better prepared than we are. These are our kids,” he said.

The study also reflected racial disparities in survival rates.  Across the 132 cases, survival was higher among white non-Hispanic/Latino athletes (60 percent) than black/African American (33 percent) and Hispanic/Latino (20 percent) athletes.

“We can hypothesize that the reason is that there are more minorities in schools with fewer resources, and socioeconomic disparities result in fewer AEDs and athletic trainers onsite in schools mostly populated by minority students. We’re trying to get more granular details about this racial disparity to bring it to light so we can change it,” Drezner said.