Pamela Hunt, vice president of Patient Care and chief nursing executive of Community Heart and Vascular Hospital, along with Joyce Irwin, president and CEO of Community Health Network Foundation, recently presented eight full-rescue automated external defibrillators (AEDs) and 120 student athlete echocardiograms to Warren Township Schools.
Warren Central High School, Creston Middle School, Raymond Park Middle School and Stonybrook Middle School each received two AEDs, along with 30 student athlete echocardiograms. The donation is valued at $20,600, and funding was made possible by Community Health Network Foundation, in recognition of Community Heart and Vascular Hospital’s decade of serving Central Indiana.
“As a health care provider and partner to Warren Township Schools, we are pleased and proud to donate this technology and the student echocardiogram screenings. We know that prevention and detection are key in recognizing potential cardiac threats to our community. With this donation we can ensure access to life-saving equipment and screenings if the need should arise, said Hunt.”
The Zoll®’s full-rescue AED offers Real CPR Help™, a technological feature that can “see” the actions of a person administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and provide feedback to assist during a medical emergency. When cardiac arrest occurs, only 50% of victims will need a shock. The remaining 50% require high-quality CPR, and the AED audio and visual prompts will assist in rescue with assurance and precision.
The American Heart Association states that nearly 300,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) occur each year, with a survival rate of less than 8 percent. Merely 32 percent of those victims receive bystander CPR. Effective bystander CPR can double or triple the rate of survival of someone who experiences cardiac arrest. AEDs help because they provide easy-to-follow instructions. The chance of surviving OHCA decreases 7 to 10 percent every minute that no care is provided. CPR prolongs the window for successful defibrillation, but it is the shock, not the CPR, that reverses the lethal arrhythmia.
“On behalf of the Metropolitan School District of Warren Township and the Board of Education, we thank Community Health Network and Contributors for their gracious donation of eight AEDs and 120 echocardiograms. This donation is even more meaningful to Warren Township because two years ago an automated external defibrillator was used during an emergency to save the life of a staff member. We know that working together we can save lives,” said Dr. Dena Cushenberry, Superintendent of Warren Township Schools.
