October Designated as Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month in California

October Designated as Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month in California

In June 2024 the Eric Paredes Save A Life Foundation and Kyle J. Taylor Foundation as founding members of the California Youth Heart Coalition co-sponsored SR 98 to designate October as Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month in California.

Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) continues to be a public health crisis, with California having the highest number of victims and one of the lowest survival rates. News stories we report on our social channels only capture a fraction of the thousands of youth stricken annually.

In fact, the American College of Cardiology cites that 2 in 50 high schools alone will experience a cardiac arrest on campus each year. With nearly 4,000 high school across the state, and six million youth enrolled in K-12 schools altogether, but no prevailing mandate for CPR/AED education, cardiac emergency response planning or accessible automated external defibrillators (AED), our state is hard-pressed to empower sudden cardiac arrest survival.

Designating October as Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month will be a platform for communities to build a culture of prevention at home, in school, on the field, with our medical providers, in the workplace and throughout our diverse communities. Our sincere thanks to Senators Brian Jones and Josh Becker for championing the protection of young hearts where they live, learn and play.

The Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival reports just 41% of California’s SCA victims receive CPR from a bystander who witnessed the cardiac arrest, and just ~9% receive a shock from a nearby AED. And those outcomes are lower for Black or Hispanic persons or in Black or Hispanic neighborhoods. That’s why California’s survival rate is ~8% – one of the lowest states compared to the national average.

The power to change these outcomes depends on our ability to raise awareness of the critical need to evolve our preparedness to respond to a cardiac arrest victim. CPR performed by a bystander can triple survival, a written and well-practiced cardiac emergency response plan can improve survival to 70% and an AED used in the first minutes of collapse can increase survival to 90%.