Congress Can Save Lives 📧
Last year, thanks to the work of tens of thousands of advocates, Congress passed the bipartisan HEARTS Act. The HEARTS Act helps schools across the country respond to a cardiac emergency by helping them purchase and maintain an AED (automated external defibrillator), train school staff and volunteers on CPR and make sure they have a plan for what to do in a cardiac emergency. The bill passed both the House and Senate unanimously and was signed into law. Now Congress needs to fund this lifesaving program.
More than 350,000 people suffer a cardiac arrest each year outside of a hospital, and more than 23,000 of them are children. Only 10% of people survive a cardiac arrest due to lack of timely intervention, but a person’s chance of survival can double or even triple if someone nearby calls 911, starts CPR and uses an AED right away. In schools with an AED present, the chances of a child surviving a cardiac arrest increases to 70%, seven times the overall survival rate for children!