Nick Stevens: an AED update

Wow. I cannot believe the number of e-mails I have received over the last week regarding AEDs - not only in high school athletics - but in schools in general.

I've had people e-mailing me to ask if I knew where to find them; e-mails from AED manufacturers providing information about their products and offering to help get the machines in schools; and, I have received some more personal e-mails with personal stories from parents, grandparents, and friends of children who are at risk for, or fell victim to, Sudden Cardiac Arrest.

Did you know that there are groups meeting regularly to lobby for a mandate that would require schools to make AEDs accessible? I didn't before last week, but there are.

Aimee Euson was one of the people who sent me an e-mail. Aimee works for an AED manufacturing company, Defibtech, based out of Guilford, Conn., but she is from Greensboro.

Aimee read WRAL's article about Alex Beuris, as well as my blogpost about AEDs in high school athletics, and she offered a statistic that I thought was very interesting -- Sudden Cardiac Arrest kills over 450,000 people a year; more than breast & prostate cancer, hand guns, car accidents, AIDS, and house fires combined!!

And we can't get AEDs in every school? We have fire alarms. We have fire extinguishers. We have fire & tornado drills. Why doesn't every school have an AED?

I stand corrected in a piece of information that I gave to you in my earlier blogpost. AEDs have actually come down in price by about 50-percent since 2003. Most AEDs cost around $1,500 today -- a drop in the bucket for a school's budget!

Now, I promised that I wouldn't let this topic go - and I'm not - but it is taking some time to gather all of the information that I would like.

I can tell you that Karen Dehart at the N.C. High School Athletic Association is working on grant money that would help put AEDs in member schools. WRAL is going to be talking to Dehart about the grant in coming days, and you'll be able to get that information right here on WRAL.com later this week.

I've also been directed to a very interesting web site by numerous people. This site, la12.org, is a site dedicated to a lacrosse player who lost his life to Commotio Cordis. I'd encourage you to go to that site to learn more, and if you are a school administrator, coach, or concerned parent, you can order a FREE kit about starting an AED program.

Remember, if you've got any information such as whether or not your school/school system has AEDs available, or a personal story, please feel free to send me an e-mail. My address (which is found at the top of all blogposts) is stevens@ncsportsreport.com. I'd love to hear from coaches, administrators, local leaders, and athletic directors as well.

Hopefully we will see AEDs in EVERY school, K-12, soon.