To mark National CPR and AED Awareness Week (June 1-6) we’re taking a look at some of the lessons learned, saves made, and progress achieved in heart safety during the past year.

Today we’ll focus on youth sports — an area where coaches, trainers, and parents are spurring their communities on to greater understanding of sudden cardiac arrest and the ways that CPR and automated external defibrillators (AEDs) can be used to save lives.

We didn’t have to look very far to find an important story. In Mill Creek, Washington, just a few miles from Cardiac Science corporate offices, a family is giving the community the gift of heart safety in memory of their late son, Nick Varrenti.

Nick, who played football for Mill Creek High School, died in 2004 of sudden cardiac arrest brought on by an undiagnosed heart condition, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. His parents created a foundation to provide cardiac screening for other young athletes in the Seattle area. The foundation also works through the Heart of Seattle Schools program to equip all Seattle public schools with AEDs.

This news video follows Ballard High School basketball player Salim Gloyd as he goes through an EKG screening.

Cardiac screening programs like this are appearing in communities nationwide. In the Chicago area, the Max Schewitz Foundation provides free EKG testing; similar screenings are available to student athletes in Plano, Texas, and Rochester, New York. In September, we were reminded of the importance of these tests when University of California women’s basketball forward Tierra Rogers had a close call. After she had trouble breathing during practice, Rogers was taken to a hospital where tests revealed that she had a heart condition requiring an implantable defibrillator. She could have suffered sudden cardiac arrest.

AEDs saving young lives

Earlier this year, we profiled cardiac arrest survivors under the age of 20. Many were athletes, and most were saved by an AED that their school or community sports organization had provided. These survivors included Michael Ward and Kyle Bednar, Minnesota teens who played basketball on opposing teams. The two met in the hospital last summer where they were recovering from surgery after suffering sudden cardiac arrest in school gymnasiums. In both cases, their rescuers used AEDs mounted just outside the gyms to provide the timely shock that saved their lives.

“If there hadn’t been a defibrillator, all the CPR in the world wouldn’t have saved Kyle,” Lisa Bednar, Kyle’s mother, told the local paper.

Not surprisingly, an increasing number of states are passing laws that required AEDs in schools and in community sports facilities. The most recent of the states to take action is Oregon, which has a new school AED law requiring all schools to have at least one AED on campus by 2015.

In December 2007, Congress declared the first week of June each year as National CPR/AED Awareness Week. During that week, organizations dedicated to heart safety such as the American Heart Association and the American Red Cross conduct activities to encourage states, cities and towns to establish CPR and AED training programs and increase public access to AEDs.

Last 5 posts

• Cardiac Science AEDs in Spain [VIDEO] - April 4th, 2011
• Cardiac Science wins first major public access defibrillation program in Europe - March 30th, 2011
• Georgia Park saves 5 lives with AEDs - March 24th, 2011
• Sad stories, avoidable deaths? - March 23rd, 2011
• Texas school's AED saves 6-year-old's life - March 22nd, 2011

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