SADS Foundation :: Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndromes Foundation

Community 'Kick Off' Speech

I have a great friend, whose father climbed all the high peaks in Europe, South America and those in our continent. When he settled down and married his family quickly began to grow-ended up with 7 kids-my friend David being one. Now, when you have a family of 9, you find affordable ways to have fun together-so this family learned to hike. David's dad was also a founding member of REI, and required that each child carry a backpack equal in weight to his age. They had to carry the ten essentials-matches, compass, map, etc. And, David's father always made his kids take along several dog biskets. He figured that if a child got lost he could always eat a bisket if he got hungry enough, but they were so distasteful that they didn't disappear like the chocolate and raisins he had given them earlier as emergency food. To this day, if you open up David's glove compartment in his truck you will find several very hard dog biskets inside, just in case.

I spend my day as a middle school principal, guiding the physical, emotional and intellectual development of children between the ages of 10 and 15. Statistics continually show that schools are the safest place a child can be in our nation Safer than the mall, at home, even asleep.

An average middle school has 900+ students and over 100 adults, all sharing the same roof, oxygen, unique culture. We tend to know the medical issues of our kids and staff well-although always the undiagnosed heart problem. We also have 50 visitors a day-deliveries, parents and grandparents picking up children for dentist, families attending a band concert A secret: of all the things that make school principals lie awake at night-never violate the trust a parent has placed in you to keep their child safe. Far outweighs quality of teaching and learning, class size. Lose a child, there is nothing you can ever do to bring the child back.

For 37 years, Gallop Poll has tracked parents attitudes and opinions of our public schools Number one ranked goal-not prepare my child for Harvard, a successful, productive adulthood. Keep my child safe. Children in our 8th and 10th grade in Everett are trained in CPR and the use of AEDs, in partnership with Medic One. For free

Learning CPR and how to use an AED at school increases the likelihood that someone who experiences Sudden Cardiac Arrest will be provided with oxygen to the brain during the critical first few minutes, and will stop the fibrillation of the heart muscle, through the use of an AED. See, when a muscle goes begins to fibrillate, no longer controlled by the involuntary or voluntary signals from the brain All of the separate muscles making up the heart begin to twitch and contract on their own rhythm-no longer coordinated.

Those of you who mess around with car engines, it is like switching the order of the spark plug wires on a 8 cylinder motor Or, if ever enjoyed the great music performed by the Everett Symphony, it is like those 5 minutes before the concert begins, when each musician is practicing a different section of music, played at a different pace. Like a mis-wired V8 motor, heart muscles can not idle or race in a coordinated fashion. Like a symphonic orchestra, heart muscles can not play at their own beat, they must all work together to sound out those rich, deep notes of Da Boom, Da Boom. Learning CPR and the correct use of an AED does something else for secondary students, harder to measure. In a world where decisions are mostly made for them, where it is frequently impossible to feel much power to effect positive change in a big way, gives each student the skills to save a life. What a gift. The ultimate gift-one which is the theme of so many of our children's stories. Think of Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, We empower and enrich each child-we tell them: you are trained and trusted. You have value. You can be somebody.

Last summer Tanner, Scott and Taylor were playing on a rope swing just east of my school. Taylor lost his grip and fell 40 feet-fell on his back, went unconscious. He stopped breathing. Scott called 911 on his cell phone and ran to direct the EMTs to the spot in the forest where Taylor lay, while Tanner bent over his friend and began CPR. Terrified? You bet. Too fast or two slow? Probably. But, faced with the unconscious, still body of his friend, Tanner went lip to lip for over 15 minutes. Counting out his chest compressions and keeping oxygen flowing to Taylor's brain. Did he think twice about starting CPR, when everything in our society has taught him that putting his mouth to another boy's mouth is just wrong? No. When faced with the image of his friend dying, Tanner didn't hesitate.

I spoke with Taylor on Tuesday of this week. Making his way through 8th grade. Alive. Tanner says that kids don't say much to him anymore about what he did-at first they asked him whether he actually did mouth to mouth. But, when he told them without missing a beat, yep, I did, he took on the image of a folk hero of sorts. Tanner made it real-he used his training to save his friend's life.

A few years ago a pitcher on one of our school baseball teams was pitching at batting practice. Those of you who know about baseball know that coaches train pitchers to step behind a L-shaped shield after each pitch, to get out of the way of any balls hit directly back at them. At practice this day the pitcher didn't duck behind the L-screen in time, and the line drive ball struck him directly in the sternum. Knocked him to the ground, and his heart went into Sudden Cardiac Arrest. Two boys sitting in the bleachers saw what happened, ran past the frozen coach, and immediately started CPR. Where did they learn the skills of CPR? In their 8th grade class, along with every other 8th grader in their class. Kept oxygen flowing to the pitcher's brain until the aid car arrived, transported to the hospital, AED restarted his heart at the correct rhythm, recovered completely.

Everett Public Schools works every day to earn the trust of the parents who send their children to our campuses, and to always be worthy of the respect with which our community has so steadily demonstrated through its support for so many years. Never forgotten that our first responsibility is to keep a child safe A team of district leaders and Medic One volunteers reviewed recommendations for AEDs in schools Invited AED manufacturers to submit qualities of their units. Created a standard for AED numbers and placement for each of our school district sites. Selected one model of AED for our district-arranged for the new vendor to buy back other models obtained earlier. In partnership with Medic One, no child, no staff member, no grandfather attending a school play or hyped up fan of a team from another district will ever be out of reach of an AED when needed. The volunteers at Medic One will continue to train our secondary students in CPR and the use of an AED. This morning each of us has the opportunity to be part of something unique, and to recognize the amazing relationship between Medic One and the greater community in which it operates. Just as my friend David's dad made sure he had his dog biscuits in case of emergency, you can help our schools be prepared for emergencies with AEDs. Just as Tanner made a life-saving gift when the time came, so can each of us this morning. We can continue to make it possible for children who walk through our malls, who sit in the seat next to us at a movie and who are on their way to joining the workplaces in our community are trained in CPR and the use of an AED. You contribution this morning helps raise the odds that the next time a pitcher goes down, or your minister in the middle of a church service, that a youth who is present will be trained and confident that he too has the skills and the power to save a life. This morning is when you can be part of that life-saving act.