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Pennsylvania Bill Would Mandate Defibrillators, Training in Schools

A two-bill package making its way through the Senate Education Committee would require schools to have working automatic external defibrillators, as well as a safety team trained and certified to use them.

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Legislation mandating schools to have automatic external defibrillators, like one shown here, in schools or at least readily available at school sporting events is expected to see action this spring in the state Senate Education Committee.
Joe Hermitt/TNS
(TNS) — Most Pennsylvania public schools have an automatic external defibrillator, or AED, available in case of emergencies but a state lawmaker wants an assurance that the device is in working order and someone on site knows how to use it.

Sen. Katie Muth, D-Montgomery County, has a two-bill package in the Senate Education Committee that seeks to impose that mandate on schools. One bill would mandate school buildings not only have a working AED in a central accessible place, but require them to have a safety team certified in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and trained in using an AED.

A second bill requires all coaches and supervisors of after-school activities also be certified in CPR and trained in AED use and renew that certification every two years.

The Senate education committee will consider the Muth bills and a bill by Sen. Rosemary Brown, R-Monroe County, requiring AEDs at school sporting events this spring, according to Chairman Dave Argall, R-Schuylkill County. Similar bills have been offered in the House.

“Learning not every school has an AED on site is really kind of a scary thing,” said Muth, a former athletic trainer who worked with teams at the high school, college and professional levels. “Having that life-saving tool is essential to keeping us all safe.”

Sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death in young athletes. The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that approximately 2,000 people under the age of 25 die from sudden cardiac arrest in the U.S. each year.

Having individuals trained in CPR and knowledgable about the use of AEDs in schools can make a life-or-death difference. As of last year, 20 states had laws in place mandating AEDs in schools, according to the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation in Allegheny County.

Last month, a New Jersey 12-year-old collapsed and died during football practice, according to a report by News12 New Jersey. No one trained in CPR was there to help him.

A few weeks ago, a 10-year-old girl collapsed from cardiac arrest at Olympic Skating Center in East Pennsboro Township. Doctors credited Individuals who immediately began performing CPR and used an AED before an EMS crew arrived for saving the girl’s life, said Julie Walker, executive director of the Peyton Walker Foundation in Camp Hill which donated an AED to the skating rink.

Pro football fans also got a reminder of the critical role AEDs play when they saw Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin lying lifeless on the football field after suffering a cardiac arrest. A quick response and use of an AED helped save his life.

“Damar Hamlin brought an epic wave of public awareness very quickly,” Muth said. “There is no reason that every person and kid shouldn’t have that same level of protection. It’s basic. So I’m hoping that something that was so big in that moment on prime time TV escalates it so people are more aware.”

Muth said in addition to her own experience as an athletic trainer, it was a constituent whom she credits as an inspiration behind her legislation.

Christy-Marshall Silva’s 7-year-old son Aiden collapsed at home without warning in 2010 and died from sudden cardiac arrest. Silva formed a foundation in her son’s name with a mission to raise awareness and help create “heart-safe communities for youth” in southeast Pennsylvania.

“We need to be ready and we need to be prepared for our children in case something happens,” said Silva at a news conference last week with Muth to promote the bill. “This legislation will ensure that and finally, this legislation is going to help make our athletes safer.”

She said a law enacted in Pennsylvania in 2014 requires public schools to report to the Pennsylvania Department of Education whether they had AEDs but there are no compliance checks by the department to see if the devices are operational which if not properly maintained could have deadly consequences.

There also are not required checks about who is trained to use them, or repercussions for schools that fail to report data. Neither are there requirements that schools have a cardiac arrest emergency plan in place.

The department’s data from 2021-22 shows most of the state’s 776 public schools had at least one AED.

Brown’s legislation requires AEDs at interscholastic sporting events and practices and require schools to have a sudden cardiac event emergency action plan to be prepared for those events that may occur at athletic activities. She said oftentimes, cardiac arrests occur at those events as a result of underlying undiagnosed cardiac condition in young athletes.

While she has long been supportive of requiring AEDs in every school, Brown said, “I especially want to see them in very quick reach at athletic events and practices also.”

Brown helped champion the effort that led to the passage of the 2014 law requiring schools to report whether they had AEDs, which she said was a compromise that fell short of her goal of mandating devices at every school.

Like Muth, Brown’s interest in this issue was inspired by a local student Greg Moyer who went into cardiac arrest in the locker room during basketball game in 2000 and died. Emergency officials believe he could have been saved if an AED had been immediately available. His mother started a fund to help buy AEDs for schools and raise awareness of sudden cardiac arrest.

“I think we can all agree on this issue,” Brown said. “There’s a lot of bipartisan work that can happen on this. It shouldn’t have taken this long to say this is common sense health safety for our students, visitors, teachers, anybody in a school environment — and it works. It’s significantly effective in saving lives.”

Sen. Marty Flynn, D-Lackawanna County, is proposing similar legislation to Brown’s bill requiring onsite AEDs at sporting events and for coaches to be trained in their use.

Walker, who launched the Peyton Walker Foundation to advocate for cardiac screenings, is pleased to see so much attention being given to better responding to sudden cardiac arrest emergencies.

Her daughter’s story inspired a law requiring the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association to add information on the importance of electrocardiograms on physical forms necessary to compete in school athletics.

She is especially excited to see the interest in requiring the CPR and AED training for coaches, saying they are the front line of defense for athletes who suffer cardiac arrest. She also likes the calls for schools to adopt an emergency action plan, saying schools have fire drills but cardiac emergencies in schools are more prevalent than fires in school buildings.

“We really should have a plan in place,” Walker said. “Our hope is that [lawmakers] are going to kind of cherrypick the most important parts from each one of these bills and create one heckuva piece of legislation that is absolutely going to help save lives on school campuses.”

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