The guidelines also urge that emergency medical services be within close range, that an ambulance be within five minutes of the competition site for all sports, except track and field, cross-country, tennis and golf. They call for the presence of a physician at a football game or wrestling match. But they make no mention of defibrillators. AEDs are portable defibrillators programmed to listen to the heart and shock it back into rhythm. In cases of cardiac arrest, the AHA says, a victim's chance of survival decreases by 7 to 10 percent with each minute that passes.
Similar movements are under way across the country.
One Illinois school district recently bought 16 defibrillators. The New Jersey Assembly, meanwhile, is considering legislation that would provide the devices to all 380 high schools in its state. Until those bills become law, though, there will be rural and urban school districts that can't afford defibrillators, no matter how many instructional classes the Red Cross or the AHA offer. Much of the impetus for change is coming from private organizations, such as those formed by the families of Savino and Moyer, who was a student at the William Penn Charter School. These foundations raise money to buy defibrillators for high schools and leagues and to inform the public about the dangers of such congenital heart defects as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.