Take Heart America

Take Heart America Goes to School

Pilot Sites Receive Medtronic’s Keep the Beat Nationwide AED School Grant Program

Shoreline, Wash. — JUNE 9, 2008 — Take Heart America (www.takeheartamerica.org) combines the efforts of doctors, nurses, paramedics, health educators and community leaders into a comprehensive and community-wide approach to saving the lives of those who suffer sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). With deployment of state-of-the-art resuscitation science strategies and outreach programs in pilot sites across country, the initial sites in St. Cloud and Anoka County, Minn., have successfully increased survival rates more than two-fold. Columbus, Ohio and Austin, Texas are deploying these same measures, demonstrating that the actions applied in smaller communities can be applied successfully in larger communities as well.

Each Take Heart America pilot site has independently applied for and received Medtronic’s Keep the Beat Nationwide AED (automatic external defibrillator) School Grant Program. Grants are awarded to and focused on new initiatives in schools, school districts, government agencies, and non-profit organizations that educate students about sudden cardiac arrest and prepare them to act in an emergency. The underlying goal of the grant is to help develop comprehensive school-based programs that will prepare a new generation of people to recognize SCA when it happens and take action when it does.

“Schools and kids are a great combination–not only for directly saving lives but educating new generations about the issue,” says Keith Lurie, M.D., co-founder of Take Heart America. “Placing AEDs in schools and training students and faculty in their use will improve the survival rates of sudden cardiac arrest victims.”