Governor Cuomo Signs CPR in Schools Bill

From the Capitol Confidential, in case you had not seen it: Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed a bill that, if approved by the state Board of Regents, would mandate the teaching of CPR in schools. It is among a batch of bills he signed earlier. Here are some details about the CPR measure by supporters.… Read More

Overwhelmed

So, my 17 year old son had SCA on July 30, 2014. I found him at ~11pm on the floor in his bedroom. The last breaths woke me up. I knew as I walked into his room that this wasn't good. Immediately every breath I had left me, I was gasping for air, while trying to "wake" him up. I ran downstairs… Read More

The Other Big Cause

When most people think of October, they think pink. People everywhere know that October is breast cancer awareness month. About 40,000 women in the U.S. are expected to die from breast cancer in 2014, although fortunately death rates have been decreasing since 1989—largely because of increased… Read More

AB 2217 signed into law by Governor Brown, encouraging all CA public schools to have an AED

On Tuesday, September 29th, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law AB 2217, which would encourage all public schools to have an automated external defibrillator (AED) by allowing public schools the ability to solicit and receive funds to acquire and maintain an AED, if they don’t already… Read More

Happy 'birthday': Aquinas volleyball player from Grant celebrates anniversary of near-fatal collapse

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Dayle Wood has a brand new "birthday," and she's thankful for every new day, week and year she has to live. It has been a little over a year since Wood collapsed during an Aquinas volleyball practice because of an irregular heartbeat and needed to be revived via an automated… Read More

In memory of Paul

Hello everyone, I just learned of this website when reading a small newsletter called BottomLine Personal. My husband Paul died of SCA on Aug 4 this year, just about one month shy of his 64th birthday. Although his death certificate says "heart attack", I now know that was not exactly the case.… Read More

We're acting on the results, but we cannot share until mid-November.

In 2012 SLICC demonstrated that pedal chest compressions permitted people to last three plus times longer than people performing manual compressions also were able to provide Guideline-Compliant Chest Compressions ("GC3's") to a larger percentage of the USA adult population. See http://www.slicc.… Read More

Capps Introduces Legislation to Teach Students to Save Lives

WASHINGTON, DC –Today Congresswoman Lois Capps (CA-24) announced she has introduced the Teaching Children to Save Lives Act (H.R. 2308), legislation that would provide critical resources to assist schools with teaching students across the country the life-saving skills of cardiopulmonary… Read More

If you want to better understand the magnitude of the problem...

Set up a looping function on the timer on your phone, tablet, computer, whatever. Have it beep every 88 seconds. That's the average interval between SCA's in the USA. That's right, on the average someone dies of an SCA every 88 seconds. When that beeping starts to alarm you, pause to think that we… Read More

Ever give much thought to the size of a risk?

Two factors determine the size of a risk: How likely is it that the thing you're concerned about will happen? And if it happens, how large is the loss? "one chance in a million that you'll lose a leg" is not a big risk. "a 50 / 50 chance that you'll lose a penny" is not a big risk. How big a risk… Read More