In Honor of Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month, Foundation Donates AEDs to Winning Schools

Pittsburgh, Penn. – The Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation today announced the winners of its second video awareness contest. The student competition drove teams from across the country to submit videos about the impact of sudden cardiac arrest and the importance of CPR and automated external defibrillator (AED) use, empowering students and communities to make a difference in helping to save lives.

The Grand Prize Winner is Norwich Free Academy in Norwich, Connecticut, with their inspiring video “How to Save a Life,” which tells the story of Larry Pontbriant, a fellow student recently lost to sudden cardiac arrest. The Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation will award the school with a new AED, three CPR Anytime™ kits, and a Nintendo Wii game system. The school intends to share their winnings with others in the community.



“After Larry died, our students worked with the Pontbriants and others to get legislation passed in Connecticut that encourages all schools to have AEDs,” said Laura Binder, History Teacher and Student Advisor at Norwich Free Academy. “Then they decided that passing laws wouldn’t be the end of the story. They still wanted to continue to raise awareness—to get the word out. This contest was a natural evolution of their mission. It was a personal project for the students.”



Teams of students and advocates wrote, filmed, starred in and edited their own brief videos promoting the importance of CPR and AED use. The panel of judges reviewed the entries for their overall message, creativity, originality, degree of student participation and likelihood to raise awareness. Finalists were posted on the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation’s website (www.sca-aware.org/schools) and on its YouTube Channel (http://www.youtube.com/SCAFoundation) and promoted to schools and communities nationwide.

While technical accuracy was not a key focus in the judging, one of the objectives of the contest and its prizes is to encourage the development—through awareness and training—of potentially life-saving skills.

“Sudden cardiac arrest can strike anyone at any time, including students, teachers and community members in schools and playing fields across the nation,” said Mary Newman, president of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation. “When our youth and their leaders embrace the opportunity to get trained in CPR and AED use, we begin to foster the growth of a new generation of people who are ready, willing and able to help in the event of sudden cardiac emergencies. Ultimately, this generation has the power to increase survival from the nation’s leading cause of death.”

Additional winners include:
    •    High School Category: Erik Agard, Montgomery Blair High School, Gaithersburg, Maryland
    •    College Category: Nathan Coltrane, Eastern Washington University, Seattle, Washington
    •    Advocacy Category: Scott Hale, Omaha, Nebraska.
The category winners will receive an AED and a CPR Anytime kit. The awarded AEDs were donated by Cardiac Science and ZOLL Medical Corporation, both sponsors of the Foundation’s You Can Save a Life at School™ awareness campaign.

ABOUT THE SUDDEN CARDIAC ARREST FOUNDATION
The Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) Foundation is a national non-profit 501(c)3 organization based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Its mission is to serve as an information source and social marketing force focused on raising public awareness of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), and stimulating attitudinal and behavioral changes that will help save more lives. Initiatives include an online registry for SCA survivors, an online community for people affected by SCA, an awareness campaign for schools, and annual awards recognizing those who helped save a life. The SCA Foundation maintains a national database of survivors and experts available to speak with the media. For more information, visit http://www.sca-aware.org.



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CONTACT: 

Carissa B. Caramanis O’Brien
Red Box Communications for SCA Foundation
Phone: 978-875-2020
Email: carissa [dot] obrien [at] sca-aware [dot] org
Twitter: @carissao 
www.sca-aware.org/sca-newsroom
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