This heroic nurse and the rest of the incredible emergency response team at my sons high school did everything right and my son will survive.  This amazing team and this quick-thinking nurse went to work that day expecting a normal work day and instead performed CPR and administered shocks with a defibrillator to my sons chest and got his pulse and breathing back TWICE before the paramedics arrived. There was a 90% chance that this outcome would be different.

 

I found out later at the hospital that my son experienced sudden cardiac arrest. He wasn’t playing sports or doing anything strenuous he was literally sitting at his desk in class. He is not overweight, he has no health problems, there were no signs.

 

Sudden cardiac arrest. You’ve probably heard the words before but you probably don’t think about it much. Maybe you associate it with athletes on playing fields or people with heart disease.  I have learned that sudden cardiac arrest is a serious public health crisis. 1000 people a day are effected by sudden cardiac arrest and 436,000 Americans die from SCA annually.

 

SCA is actually the third leading cause of natural death in the United States. It kills more people than breast cancer and car accidents.  I am haunted by knowing that if this would have happened at home maddox would probably be dead.

We have to do better as a community, as a society. It’s not your fault, or mine, we didnt know. But now we do and we have to do something with that. I don’t ever want anyone to have to go through what we went through and then NOT be able to take your child home at the end of it.

 

We are the 10%, the luckiest of the lucky, I can’t think about it too much and stay sane.

 

In 1999, Project ADAM was founded to save lives by empowering schools and communities to be prepared for a Sudden Cardiac Arrest.  There are currently 38 established Project ADAM programs in 29 States and more than 200 lives have been saved.

 

Your donation to the Lurie Children's hospital will directly benefit Project ADAM and help further the goals of getting awareness and AEDs everywhere!