With the $5,000 in financial support of the North Shore Rotary Club of Milwaukee, funding is in place to provide both training and equipment needs to all North Shore area schools to achieve and maintain Heart Safe School designations.
Given heart disease is leading cause of deaths among students, making sure North Shore high schools are ‘heart safe’ has become a local priority. With the financial support of the North Shore Rotary Club of Milwaukee, funding is in place to provide both training and equipment needs. North Shore schools are on the path towards being optimally prepared to manage cardiac arrests on their property.
Project ADAM (Automated Defibrillators in Adam’s Memory) began in 1999 in Milwaukee following the tragic death of Whitefish Bay High School student, Adam Lemel. Adam suffered a Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) in which ventricular fibrillation occurred. Defibrilation, or an AED, could have saved his life. Adam’s parents collaborated with Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin’s Herma Heart Institute to create an educational community outreach program in Adam’s memory to begin advocating for public access AED’s and practiced emergency response in schools.
Today, many AED’s are located in North Shore schools, but few schools are trained to feel comfortable using them and often no communication plan exists to notify others (including EMS/911) when help is needed. Each minute that passes decreases the chance of survival for a victim of sudden cardiac death.
The proposal to make all North Shore high schools ‘heart safe’ developed after a local high school student presented to our Club in June 2019 on his school’s journey to become ‘heart safe’; certified by Project ADAM. Given interest in the topic by our Club’s members, he submitted a formal funding proposal to pursue his goal – to make all North Shore high schools heart safe.
With the approval of $5,000 in funding support, Project ADAM is now positioned to support a training workshop; to include integration with North Shore Fire/Recue, as well as equipment needs to help North Shore high schools create a comprehensive cardiac arrest plan for their students, teachers, staff, and visitors. The goal of the workshop will be to offer leadership and encouragement to all North Shore area schools to achieve and maintain Heart Safe School designations