Children's Hospital Recognizes Schools Helping to Fight Heart Disease
March 08, 2006
Children’s Hospital recently presented five area schools with automated external defibrillators (AED) for their part in helping fight heart disease.
Children’s Hospital recently presented five area schools with automated external defibrillators (AED) for their part in helping fight heart disease.
Dick Scobee Elementary, Lakeview Elementary, Liberty High School, Lea Hill Elementary and Bishop Blanchet High School each received a free AED to help protect students and staff from cardiac arrests.
According to the American Heart Association, a sudden cardiac arrest victim whose heart is not defibrillated within 8-10 minutes has almost no chance of survival. Each year, cardiac arrest takes as many as 450,000 lives in the United States.
The AED devices were donated by AED manufacturers Medtronic and Philips Medical Systems for the schools’ support and efforts raising money during the 2005 American Heart Association Heart Walk on September 24, 2005.
Each school set out with the goal of recruiting 100 walkers or raising $2,500 for the American Heart Association. Training in how to use the AED devices was also available to each school. During school-wide assemblies, representatives from Children’s, the AED manufacturers and the Mariner Moose presented the schools with the AEDs and a certificate of recognition for their contributions to fighting heart disease.
Together the schools raised more than $5,312 with 456 walkers for the American Heart Association.
“The students and staff of these schools should be very proud of their role in raising awareness about the devastating effects of heart disease on our community,” said Pat Hagan, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Children’s.
“By supporting the Heart Walk and receiving an AED, they have made their schools safer. Having an AED on-site gives students or staff suffering a cardiac arrest the best possible chance of survival. Children’s Hospital is proud to be working together with the American Heart Association to battle heart disease and increase awareness in schools and throughout the region.”
About Seattle Children's Hospital
Consistently ranked as one of the best children’s hospitals in the country by U.S. News & World Report, Children’s serves as the pediatric and adolescent academic medical referral center for the largest landmass of any children’s hospital in the country (Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho). For more than 100 years, Children’s has been delivering superior patient care and advancing new treatments through pediatric research. Children’s serves as the primary teaching, clinical and research site for the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. The hospital works in partnership with Seattle Children’s Research Institute and Seattle Children’s Hospital Foundation. For more information, visit http://www.seattlechildrens.org.