Posted on 05/08/2015

As the May 16th Walk for a Healthy Community approaches, the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation is looking to survivors of the potentially fatal condition of sudden cardiac arrest to tell their stories and demonstrate that so many lives can be saved if more people take the initiative to learn CPR and how to use automated external defibrillators (AEDs).
 
One such survivor, Beverly Buxareo, a teacher at Vincentian Academy, a Pittsburgh area high school, is living proof that SCA need not be a death sentence. Buxareo suffered SCA in Pittsburgh's North Park several years ago. “She saved my life,” Buxareo said recently of the woman who gave her CPR until EMTs arrived to administer shocks from a defibrillator. To this day, Buxareo doesn’t know the identity of her rescuer, but she will never forget the kindness and courage of the stranger who saved her life. “We have to count on each other,” is the lesson she took from that experience and the message she is anxious to share.

Pittsburgh area resident Sue Hostler is no stranger to SCA. In August 2013, she was traveling for business at the Philadelphia Airport when she encountered a young man who suddenly collapsed in cardiac arrest. She saved the life of 25-year-old Bob Hallinan by giving him chest compressions for 17 minutes. “The thing that is most striking to me,” said Hostler, “is that sudden cardiac arrest can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time.”
 
Please join or support our team and visit us at the Walk for a Healthy Community on Pittsburgh's North Shore at Booth # 61. Local partner training organization, Start-the-Heart, will be providing CPR and AED demonstrations. An AED will be awarded to the individual or team raising the most funds for the SCA Foundation through the Walk ($1,000) minimum. The public is invited to join the SCA Foundation team in person, virtually, or by making a donation.

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