October is Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month.
Chances are overwhelming that you have known someone who has died from a sudden cardiac arrest. Chances are also overwhelming that you aren’t aware what a national crisis we’re in. The Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association is working hard to reverse the odds.
Almost 1,000 Americans each day, some 300,000 each year, are dying from sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). That’s more than those who die from breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, house fires and HIV/Aids combined.
And we’re not talking only about out-of-shape old men. SCA is claiming the lives of young and old, men and women, fit and not-so-fit. The tragedy lies in the fact that only about 7 percent of people who suffer a sudden cardiac arrest are saved, yet we can very easily and very inexpensively save almost all SCA victims.
SCA is an electrical disruption of the heart’s normal rhythm. It’s not the same as a heart attack. The only way to survive a sudden cardiac is for someone to administer CPR and shocks from an automated external defibrillator (AED). AEDs are cheap (often less than $1,000) and easy to use (open one up and it talks to you), and they should be at least as prevalent as fire extinguishers.
Sadly, AEDs are not always mandated in public places like fire extinguishers are, and you’d probably be hard pressed to find one in your office building or your child’s school.
The Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association wants you to know that this national tragedy can be fixed, and it can be fixed quickly. How? By mandating the placement of simple-to-use AEDs in all public places in your community and mandating simple AED training in schools so that our young people grow up knowing how to use an AED just as surely as they know how to use an iPad.
Take time to find out what the policy is in your school system. Find out if there’s an AED in your office. Find out if there’s an AED at your shopping mall and in your gym. If not, find out why not. We simply can’t continue to lose 300,000 Americans each year for lack of a very simple solution. The Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association needs you to get involved.
For more information about saving lives in your community, go to our website at www.suddencardiacarrest.org. This national crisis has to end.