My 17 year old son Matthew, a student at Kimball Union Academy (KUA), went into Cardiac Arrest on October 18, 2006, following a routine football practice.  His heart stopped.  He had no pulse.  Luckily for Matt (family and friends), Kimball Union Academy was prepared.  Our story has a happy ending.   CPR was administered almost immediately, and the school had a defibrillator out on an adjacent field which was delivered to him within minutes.  If not for the heroic acts of the trainers, nurse, and those around him - Matt would not be with us today.

For most college students facing their 21st birthday, plans for celebration and exciting thoughts for experiencing new places and people are the common theme. Unfortunately in my case, thoughts of survival and whether I was ever going to maintain a normal lifestyle at 20 were at the forefront of my contemplations. At the age of 15, I was diagnosed with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, a disease that is rare to most but commonly runs in my family. Like most young teenagers I didn't really think anything of it or that it would actually have a significant effect on my life. Surely, it wouldn't put me in the hospital until I was in the 60's. I was proven utterly wrong when in 2004, one week before my 21st birthday, I woke up in the ICU. I had only remembered waking up early that morning and going for my usual run to the my campus rec center.

Hello survivors. I need your help to win some dollars for defibs. My name is Ron Dundon. I survived SCA in 2003 after going down while playing hockey. Following surgery I started a non-profit to buy AEDs for local rescuers. We have a chance to win the money from Volvo in an awards contest they sponsor called the Volvo for Life Awards. I am a national semifinalist in the Safety category and if I can get enough votes on the website I can win the $25,000 for the charity. So you can help a fellow survivor and his defib program by taking a few minutes to vote. The website is www.volvoforlifeawards.com. You can vote as often as once per minute. Voting ends on Jan. 7th. Please help us win some battles against SCA.

I'm a 35 year-old SCA survivor.  On the evening of July 12, 2006 I went to play basketball at our local church.  After about two and a half hours of play, we started the final game of the night.  I recall feeling a bit sluggish, but thought nothing of it.  After all, I'd been playing hard all night.  That's the last thing I remember...

Please read message posted under victims, telling of the death of my husband, the survival if his mother, and the diagnosis of two of our daughters and implantation of ICDs

My story needs a little background before I get to my actual "death."

My wife, Susie, and I have been members of the Humeston First Responders since it started in 1987. Humeston, Iowa (Pop. 543), is located approximately 55 miles south of Des Moines near the Missouri border. In our area of the state, the ambulances are hospital-based in the county seat towns, so some people have a wait of 20-30 minutes---or longer---for the arrival of an ambulance. Most of the towns have volunteer groups who go to the scene of a medical emergency and assist until the ambulance arrives.

We became Co-Presidents of our group in 2002. One of the first things Susie did was to send in a grant application to the Iowa Department of Health EMS Bureau for a new AED. The grant was funded by the federal government under the Rural & Community Access to Emergency Medical Devices program.