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Press Releases

Johnson County, Iowa, is Now Recognized as a HEARTSafe Community Designation

Johnson County, Iowa — HEARTSafe Community, a national preparedness program dedicated to improving outcomes of sudden cardiac arrest led by Citizen CPR Foundation, is proud to announce Johnson County, Iowa, as one of its newest designations.

Johnson County joins other cities — most recently Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. and La Crosse, Wisc. — in achieving HEARTSafe Community status.

Initiated by the Rotary-Kerber HeartSafe Community Campaign, Dianne Atkins, MD, Medical Director of RKHCC, first learned of HEARTSafe Community while attending Citizen CPR Foundation’s biennial Cardiac Arrest Survival Summit.

“As we organized the Rotary-Kerber Campaign, we made becoming a HEARTSafe Community one of our goals,” says Atkins. “[It] was exciting since I could see how far along our community already was.”

Atkins approached Fiona Johnson, Director, Johnson County Ambulance Service, to submit an application. “The challenge was gathering all the data from so many partners in particular, determining how many people are trained in CPR annually was a challenge since so many entities in our county provide this lifesaving training,” says Johnson. “It was a good problem to face.”

Richard Shok, HEARTSafe Community Program Chair, says becoming a HEARTSafe Community is no easy accomplishment. This accreditation is a collaborative effort.

“The HEARTSafe approach combines the talents from numerous agencies and tasks them each with making specific changes in their readiness with the goal of increasing their level of preparedness,” says Shok. “Johnson County had already thought of and implemented a strong HEARTSafe foundation before they applied,” says Shok. “The designation team asked several clarifying questions and shared some additional advice on ways to improve survival. They were quick to respond and were subsequently awarded designation.”

To become HEARTSafe, the community must fulfill 13 criteria. Some of these requirements include establishing a lead organization to guide and coordinate local efforts, training 15 percent of the community population every year, developing and implementing strategies to improve public awareness and bystander intervention, permanently placing automated external defibrillators (AEDs) that can be quickly and reliably accessed, recognizing rescuers for their lifesaving efforts among other critical requisites. For a comprehensive list of criteria in order to become a HEARTSafe Community, click here.

“We are hoping the bystander CPR rate will increase and that overall survival will also increase,” says Linda Kerber, member of RKHCC and Steering Committee. “We already know of several individuals who are alive now because of bystander CPR. This is a model that inspires others.”

To launch the announcement of Johnson County being a HEARTSafe Community, the county plans to have a press conference at 10 a.m. CST on February 14. “Moreover, the Iowa City Noon Rotary Club raised approximately $150,000 to purchase large numbers of AEDs, which we offer to non-profits and businesses for deep discounts if they promise to train their staff in CPR and AED use,” says Kerber. “We educate those staff and many groups in the community so that we are increasing the numbers of competent bystanders who are prepared to step into a crisis situation.”

On February 16, Johnson County Board of Supervisors will make a proclamation declaring February ‘American Heart Month’ while also highlighting the HEARTSafe Community status. “We are also providing many CPR certification classes in addition to Hands-Only CPR classes throughout the year,” says Johnson.

Additionally, RKHCC and Johnson County are donating CPR mannequins and educational materials to public libraries so families are well-informed of lifesaving tools and practices.

“Cardiac arrest survival requires immediate response and cannot wait for EMS to arrive,” says Atkins. “We want to make sure that every victim receives CPR as fast as humanly possible.”

The Citizen CPR Foundation thanks Johnson County for the very hard work with regard to the recognition, response, care and outcomes of sudden cardiac arrest.

“This is a beautiful example of how communities work so very hard and leverage resources to save hearts too young to die,” says Stuart Berger, MD, President of the Citizen CPR Foundation Board and Division Head of Cardiology at the Children’s Hospital of Chicago. “Thank you so very, very much to all of those who have worked to achieve this designation.”

About the Citizen CPR Foundation

The mission of the Citizen CPR Foundation is to save lives from sudden cardiac arrest by stimulating effective community, professional and citizen action. This mission is put into action through three core values: We know that CPR and AED use saves lives. Collaboration among citizens, professionals, communities, and organizations is key to survival from cardiac arrest. Action based on best practices in science, education, and implementation improves outcomes. www.citizencpr.org

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Media Contact:

David B. Hiltz, Program Director

Citizen CPR Foundation

401-524-0858

david@code1web.com

Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., is Now Recognized as a HEARTSafe Community Designation

Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. — HEARTSafe Community, a national preparedness program led by Citizen CPR Foundation dedicated to improving the outcomes of sudden cardiac arrest, is proud to announce Palm Beach Gardens as one of the newest cities to become HEARTSafe.

“We are honored and proud to be able to identify ourselves as a HEARTSafe Community,” says Ashley Terrana, District Captain, Palm Beach Gardens Fire Rescue. “Our dedication to improving the lives of our citizens has always been our motivation to receive this prestigious designation.”

Palm Beach Gardens joins a host of other cities in achieving HEARTSafe designation — most recently Johnson County, Iowa and La Crosse, Wisc.

“The HEARTSafe approach combines the talents from numerous agencies and tasks them each with making specific changes in their readiness with the goal of increasing their level of preparedness,” says Richard Shok, HEARTSafe Community Program Chair. “The result is a community which has ensured they are doing everything to prevent, respond to and learn from cardiac arrest emergencies.”

Shok says becoming a HEARTSafe Community is no easy accomplishment. “Palm Beach Gardens presented a strong case for HEARTSafe designation and their community and we were pleased to review their application and approve them for designation,” Shok says.

This accreditation is a collaborative effort.

HEARTSafe Community allowed Palm Beach Gardens Fire Rescue to partner with residents and business owners with the common goal of saving lives. “They took pride in the fact that their actions directly contributed to our success and this designation demonstrated our dedication and willingness to go above and beyond to improve our level of service,” says Terrana. “Additionally, our residents and business owners feel more connected to the community knowing that we could not have received this prestigious designation without their help. This is something we accomplished together.”

Palm Beach Gardens Fire Rescue relies on data to identify trends to improve the level of service, a HEARTSafe criteria.

“One hundred percent of our neurologically intact cardiac arrest patients received bystander CPR prior to the arrival of fire rescue,” says Terrana. “The fact is that our community is a vital link in the successful resuscitation of cardiac arrest patients.”

The Citizen CPR Foundation is proud to add Palm Beach Gardens as a HEARTSafe Community to its growing list of cities taking action to improve sudden cardiac arrest survival.

“We are so excited about the amazing work being done to improve recognition, response, care and outcomes in Palm Beach Gardens,” says Stuart Berger, MD, President of Citizen CPR Foundation Board and Division Head of Cardiology at the Children’s Hospital of Chicago. “This will save lives and is an excellent example of how communities can leverage resources to save hearts too young to die. We are so thankful to all who have worked to achieve this designation.”

Throughout February, Palm Beach Gardens will continue to teach Hands-Only CPR and AED use to over 650 city employees. “We have proclaimed this month Heart Month and what better month than to drive home the importance of knowing Hands-Only CPR, signs and symptoms of a heart attack and how to use an AED,” says Terrana.

In addition, Palm Beach Gardens will have multiple large-scale events and will continue to have fire rescue and community education personnel on-site teaching Hands-Only CPR. “These community events give our firefighter paramedics an opportunity to interact with the public and teach them the importance of bystander CPR,” says Terrana.

About the Citizen CPR Foundation

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Media Contact:

David B. Hiltz, Program Director

Citizen CPR Foundation

401-524-0858

david@code1web.com

Past Press Releases

LA CROSSE, WIS., ACHIEVES HEARTSAFE COMMUNITY DESIGNATION

November 2021: CITIZEN CPR FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES THIS YEAR'S 40 UNDER 40 CLASS

November 2021: LIVE CPR TRAINING, SURVIVOR STORIES AMONG HIGHLIGHTS OF CPR SAVES LIVES RALLY

October 2021: CITIZEN CPR FOUNDATION WELCOMES ZOLL AS FIRST-EVER CARDIAC ARREST SURVIVAL SUMMIT SIGNATURE SPONSOR

July 2021: CITIZEN CPR FOUNDATION BRINGS THE LARGEST ARRAY OF LIFESAVING PROFESSIONALS TOGETHER IN SAN DIEGO TO SAVE MORE LIVES

October 2020: MEET SURVIVORS UNDER 40 IN NEW VIDEO

January 2020: SAVE LIVES FROM SUDDEN CARDIAC ARREST

December 2019: SAVE LIVES FROM SDC-SEATTLE

August 2019: IMPROVE CARDIAC ARREST SURVIVAL RATES

Citizen CPR Foundation
7309 W 80th Street #300 Room B
Overland Park, KS 66204

Phone: (913) 402-1881 ext. 1182
Fax: (913) 402-1771
Email: info@citizencpr.org

Vinay M. Nadkarni, MD

PRESIDENT
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Vinay Nadkarni MD, MS is the Endowed Chair of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He directs the Center for Simulation, Advanced Education and Innovation at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and has served as the Chairman of the AHA Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee and International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation.

Tom P. Aufderheide, MD

IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT

Medical College of Wisconsin
Department of Emergency Medicine

Dr. Aufderheide is a nationally and internationally recognized researcher in the field of cardiac resuscitation and emergency cardiac care. He has authored numerous textbooks, chapters, CPR courses and over 100, original, research papers in peer-reviewed literature, including two papers in the New England Journal of Medicine.

He is a Professor of Emergency Medicine, past Basic Life Support Science Editor for the National American Heart Association, and directs the NIH-funded Resuscitation Research Center located in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Along with these significant accomplishments in research and education, Dr. Aufderheide has achieved many additional scholarly accomplishments that include: member of the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute’s National Heart Attack Alert Program Working Group on Methods/Technologies for Early Identification of Acute Cardiac Ischemia/Acute Myocardial Infarction in the Emergency Department; member of the NIH Small Business Innovation Research Grant Review Committee; International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation, developing international CPR guidelines; and member of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Steering Implementation Committee for the “EMS Agenda for the Future”. Wisconsin’s governor, Tommy Thompson (past United States Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Welfare) recognized Dr. Aufderheide for his work in writing and supporting Automated External Defibrillation (AED) legislation in the state of Wisconsin. Dr. Aufderheide was recently elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, Medicine, and Research. Election to the IOM is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement, commitment to service, and have made significant contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health.

Paula Lank, RN, BSN

TREASURER
Physio-Control

Retired in 2019

Formerly VP, Regulatory and Clinical Affairs at Stryker

As Vice President of Regulatory and Clinical Affairs, Paula was responsible for global regulatory leadership, clinical research, and clinical affairs. In this role since 2007, she worked with international regulatory agencies and standards organizations to maintain collaborative relationships and sustain regulatory compliance worldwide. In this role she led the effort to obtain Premarket approval for all the companies AED’s which became a new FDA regulation in 2015.

Paula has held a variety of leadership positions since joining Physio-Control in 1985, including Vice President of Clinical Research and Clinical Affairs and Director of AED Product Development. Previously, Paula worked at Harborview Medical Center in electrophysiology and cardiovascular research.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Wichita State University. Paula has served on the Executive Board of the Citizen CPR Foundation as the Secretary/Treasurer since 2008. Paula also served on the National American Heart Association (AHA) Nominating Committee, which followed a two-year term on the AHA National Board of Directors 2007-2009. Paula was an AHA volunteer for over 20 years and the Citizen CPR Foundation for more than 25 years.

Paula and her husband Greg live in Scottsdale, AZ and enjoy their first grandson in Arizona or Hermosa Beach, CA.

Edward Stapleton, AAS, EMT-P

PROGRAM CHAIR

Director of Prehospital Education
Stony Brook University School of Medicine

In 2014, Ed celebrated his 47th year in the field of Emergency Medical Services. He started as a Basic EMT in 1967 in the New York City EMS System and served as a Combat Medic in Vietnam in 1968-69. Ed became one of the first paramedics in the New York City EMS System in 1975. He went on to become one of the first EMS Educators in the New York City EMS system.

From 1989 to 2005 Ed served on the National Basic Life Support Committee for the American Heart Association and co-authored the Basic Life Support Textbooks from 1997 to 2004 in his capacity as BLS Science Editor. During his career Ed co-developed a large number of unique educational programs including five EMT and Paramedic programs in the New York City region and the first Associates Degree program in New York State at LaGuardia Community College. He has conducted numerous scientific studies related to Emergency Cardiac Care and EMS and has authored over 120 scientific and educational works including textbooks, journal articles, videos, interactive CDs, student workbooks, and instructor guides. Today Ed is active in the development of cardiac arrest response systems for both in-hospital and pre hospital care. Ed routinely lectures throughout the world on EMS, education, and emergency cardiac care. He is also the Co-Chairman of the Halla-Stony Brook Emergency Medicine Center in Jeju Island, South Korea.

William H. Montgomery, MD

EMERITUS MEMBER

University of Hawaii, School of Medicine
Department of Surgery

Dr. William H. Montgomery was a co-founder of the Foundation in 1987 and served as its President until 2004. He is an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at the University of Hawaii School Of Medicine.

He recently retired from the multispecialty Straub Clinic and Hospital in Honolulu where he was Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology for 38 years. He remains in private practice. During his career at Straub he held many other administrative posts including Chief of Staff, Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer. His activities outside Straub include active participation in the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), He currently serves on its Board of Directors and is the Director of the ASA Consultation Program. He is also the President of the Hawaii Society of Anesthesiologists. Additionally he is a member of the Hawaii State Ethics Commission.

Dr. Montgomery’s interest in CPR and resuscitation began in 1973 at the Hawaii Heart Association where he began teaching American Heart Association (AHA) CPR courses. In 1975 he was invited to join the AHA activities at the national level and he has been very active in teaching, writing educational materials and ECC program administration. He served as chair of the AHA national BLS, ECC and program administration committees to name a few. He was chair of the 1985 Silver Anniversary National Conference to review the Standards and Guidelines for CPR and ECC and has coordinated subsequent conferences including the most recent 2010 International Consensus Conference on CPR and ECC. His special interest is fostering international cooperation in the resuscitation field and was an organizer of the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) and its chairman from 1998-2006.

He has received numerous awards recognizing these achievements including the American Heart Association’s Meritorious Achievement award in 1995, induction as an Honorary Member of the European Resuscitation Council in 2004 and honored as a “Giant” in resuscitation by ILCOR and the AHA in 2000

Dr. Montgomery served as the ECCU program chair for several of the conferences. The Foundation created the William H. Montgomery, MD Excellence in Education Award in 2006. This award, sponsored by the Laerdal Foundation for Acute Medicine, is named in his honor and serves as encouragement to ECCU concurrent session presenters to strive for excellence in their presentations.

Ward Hamilton

MARKETING CHAIR

President, ZOLL Foundation

Ward Hamilton retired as Senior Vice President from ZOLL Medical in 2017. He joined the company in 1992 as Vice President of Marketing. He was elected President of the ZOLL Foundation in 2018. Prior to ZOLL Mr. Hamilton was employed by the City of Pasadena Fire Department, Datascope Corporation and Laerdal Medical. He has worked in the field of resuscitation and devices for more than 40 years. Mr. Hamilton received his BA in Political Science from Hartwick College and holds a Master’s degree in public administration from the University of Southern California. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Citizen CPR Foundation and Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation, and is active in the American Heart Association.

Richard Shok

Founder, Code One Training Solutions, LLC
Charleston, SC

Richard became interested in emergency care and resuscitation at an early age following the death of a sibling. This tragedy led to his involvement in the fire service, EMS and nursing.

Richard Shok founded Code One Training Solutions, LLC in 2007 while attending University of Connecticut’s School of Nursing. Richard recognized the need for consistent CPR training on college campuses as other classes were infrequent, distant, and of varying quality and content. Code One was established to fill this void and its on-campus CPR classes were well-received and highly praised by administration and students alike.

Upon graduation, Richard realized a similar gap existed in the community. Code One then launched its first community training center in 2009 and has continued to grow since then. Code One now operates ten training centers on the East coast from Georgia to Maine. Code One’s has a team of seven full-time staff members and 50 instructors who are all led by Richard as founder.

Traci Jolly

Instructor, EMT & AHA BLS Classes
Tahoka, TX

Traci Jolly is an outstanding EMT-P at the Lynn County EMS. She works full time on the service team and volunteers for 8-10, 12-hour shifts per month. Traci has also saved several patients after cardiac arrest as an EMT-P.

In her free time, Traci also serves as assistant director and co-instructor for all EMT and AHA BLS classes in the North Texas area.

Kevin Kerns

CEO, Tri-State Training & Safety Consulting
Aston, PA

Kevin Kerns, CEO of Tri-State Training & Safety Consulting and has developed an AHA 2015 guideline compliant CPR/FA program that has been critically acclaimed. Kevin manages 8 full-time instructors and over 100 staff members educating public and business professionals about CPR.

While serving as an EMT instructor, Kevin became aware of a lack of accessible training to the public which led to the beginning of his own training institute: Tri-State Training & Safety Consulting. His goal is to keep expanding the knowledge and awareness of CPR training and its extreme benefits to the public.

Jacob Labinski

Program Manager, Medical College of Wisconsin
Wauwatosa, WI

Jacob Labinski grew up understanding the power of Emergency Medical Services as his father was the Battalion Chief for the Milwaukee Fire Department. However, his path to administering and training CPR to the public looks different to most. Only having a basic life support CPR class in his background, Jacob had little prior knowledge about sudden cardiac arrest, community preparedness, and optimizing survival before accepting a position at the Resuscitation Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2014 working under Dr. Aufderheide. It soon became his passion.

In 2017, Jacob encountered an event that he will never forget and precisely changed the way he views community AED preparedness and the need for CPR training. While attending a recreational basketball game at a local school gymnasium, a friend of his suddenly fell to the ground and became unresponsive. Jacob’s instincts kicked in and he helped administer defibrillation and compression CPR to his friend. It was after several rounds of that process that he was able to resuscitate his friend, “Bob”. It wasn’t til later that Jacob found out from bystanders the school they played at had no AED clearly posted. The janitor did not even know where it was. One teammate had to break into the principal’s office to retrieve the AED.

Jacob has since been promoted to Program Manager for the Resuscitation Research Center. The Resuscitation Research Center has improved the understanding of resuscitation best practice by implementing many cardiac arrest studies through the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (ROC), coordinating placement of AEDs in all public schools in Wisconsin in collaboration with Project ADAM, supporting projects to provide dispatch-assisted CPR, educating the community in CPR and AED use, and optimizing EMS clinical practice and survival from cardiac arrest though scientific study.

Sarah Lamb

Paramedic, Richmond Rescue
Richmond, VT

Sarah Lamb has been working and volunteering for Richmond Rescue for nine years. She began her time there as a volunteer EMT and eventually went to paramedic school and was hired as a full-time employee. During her time as a paramedic, she took the lead on maintaining the HeartSafe designation for the Town of Richmond which as led to an interest in public AED placements and integrating community health efforts with EMS.

Sarah’s biggest accomplishment is making training accessible and enjoyable for all levels of providers. She put together a 20-minute training video demonstrating AED preparedness and CPR that has been shown widely to students and public safety professionals in Vermont and nationally. It has shown the value of police defibrillation and started the conversation in departments that do not currently carry defibrillators. The monthly squad trainings are attended by many neighboring agencies and frequently feature guest speakers.

Brady McLaughlin

CEO, Stop Heart Attack
Birmingham, AL

When Brady McLaughlin was 14 he became a lifeguard through the Boy Scouts of America. While a lifeguard, he used CPR to help save a child who had nearly drowned. Brady went on to serve in a variety of positions, a 9-1-1 dispatcher, an EMT, and eventually a CPR instructor. His interest peaked when he realized the following: the low chance of survival for a pre-hospital SCA in Alabama and the low percentage of bystanders who actually know how to perform high-quality CPR.

Brady and his wife launched a CPR training business – Trio Safety CPR+AED – from their basement during their first year of marriage with just some AHA curriculum, 10 manikins, and some serious ambition to help increase SCA survival rates. Less than 7 years later, they now have trained over 85,000 students mainly across the southeastern United States, employ 14 full-time team members, and support over 1,300 active CPR instructors. Furthermore, they’ve merged the company with Stop Heart Attack – another Alabama based business that has installed over 15,000 AEDs nationwide. Together, they developed and launched AED365 – a first-in-class iOS based AED program management system designed to ensure AED readiness, tracking, and support 24×7.

Raymon Moreland

Educator, San Diego Project Heart Beat
Chula Vista, CA

For as long as Raymon can remember, he has always had a passion to help others. He went to school and eventually started working as an EMT for American Medical Response in San Diego and was later asked to become a CPR Instructor for the San Diego Project Heart Beat.

In October of 2018, Raymon was asked if he would participate in a mass CPR training at a small K-8 school who had partnered with San Diego Project Heart Beat. Little did he know, that day his whole outlook on CPR training would change.

During his tenure, Raymon has had the opportunity to train thousands of people on early recognition, compressions and defibrillation during a sudden cardiac event, allowing student leaves the class confident and ready to assist in the event of SCA.

Denise Ng

Assistant Manager & BCLS Instructor, Singapore Heart Foundation (SHF)
Singapore

Denise joined the Singapore Heart Foundation (SHF) in 2008 where she continues to hold CPR training for the community as an BCLS Instructor and trainer. Throughout the years, she has been part of the core team that led the development of a training syllabus, accreditation efforts and administrative support for participants of SHF’s CPR, AED and First Aid programs. She is currently Assistant Manager and team lead of SHF’s Heart Safe Program.

Her efforts don’t stop there. In 2018 alone, more than 4,000 participants were certified through the SHF’s certification courses. Denise is instrumental in leading the administrative efforts, centre accreditation by Singapore Resuscitation and First Aid Council and upholding the training standards as well as teaching 5 different courses.

She also organizes CPR & AED related events and activities within the local community and nationwide throughout the year. The most well-known initiative, Project Heart, was held in October of last year and 662 participants were certified in CPR. During the same event, she also led the launch of an AED program targeted at primary medical and dental clinics and celebrated successful resuscitation efforts through the Survivor Awards.

Loralee Olejnik

Program Associate, San Diego Fire-Rescue
Sacramento, CA

Loralee became interested in SCA preparedness working as a Community Education EMT for Fire and Emergency Medical Services. In 2008, she was invited to join the San Diego Project Heart Beat team, which is San Diego’s Fire-Rescue’s Public Access CPR and AED program.

From then on, Denise worked tirelessly as a program associate with the San Diego Project Heart Beat. In this role, she has taught thousands upon thousands of people how to perform CPR and use an AED. She has helped expand the San Diego Police Department AED program, writing grants to obtain defibrillators for officer vehicles and training officers how to use them.

She has expanded the AED program in San Diego public schools, writing multiple AED grants that helped outfit locations. Denise has also spoken at multiple conferences, including ECCU, about various topics pertaining to SCA.

Prithvishree Ravindra

Emergency Physician & AHA ACLS Instructor
Bengaluru, India

Prithvishree works as an emergency physician in India where there is a lack of Emergency Medical Services and CPR awareness amongst citizens. By the time folks reach the Emergency department, too much time has lapsed and the outcome is poor. Therefore, it is essential to Prithvishree to train and educate the community regarding sudden cardiac arrest and CPR.

She has also been involved in training first responders such as police, firemen in CPR and first aid. In addition, her team have hosted multiple mass community training programs in association with Laerdel, where they trained community members as well as school children. She was also apart of a team who started a social media campaign: #CPR challenge. Members challenged their family, friends, and colleagues to perform CPR on mannequin/pillow and share on social media.

Melissa Russom

Communication Strategist, Melissa Russom Consulting
Clifton Park, NY

Melissa’s sister, Christie, died suddenly at the age of 24, Melissa went to the doctor was diagnosed with Long QT syndrome one week after her sister’s death. Weeks later, she had an ICD implanted in her chest.

She is now 37 and a mom of two daughters who also have Long QT. This diagnosis means that CPR and AED readiness is of the utmost importance to her as it could mean life or death for one of her girls. As an educator, Melissa works to teach families and friends on when to know the signs of distress and potentially save a life.

Melissa founded several organizations and campaigns aimed at SCA awareness including, a social media campaign, SelfiesWithAEDs, designed to make everyone more aware of the location of AEDs in public areas (grocery stores, schools, gyms, etc.). Melissa also founded Heartoberfest – an awareness and fundraising event held annually in upstate NY. The event has raised more than $180,000 and all funds go directly to the SADS Foundation. This year, she organized a CPR and AED demonstration to accompany the fundraising events.

Jenny Shin

Program Project Manager, King County EMS
Seattle, WA

Jenny Shin has dedicated her career and volunteer life to serving others in times of need.

Jenny is a Program Manager for grant funded research at King County EMS. She acts as the Pacific Northwest Cardiac Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES) coordinator, which is a part of the HeartRescue project that serves as an effort to measure and improve survival from out of hospital cardiac arrest. She has seven years of experience in data registries, program management, and research in pre-hospital settings.

Since joining the research team at King County EMS, Jenny has been passionate about helping communities improve survival from OHCA. She uses her epidemiological skills to use data that drives practice and protocol improvements. As a faculty member of the Resuscitation Academy, Jenny teaches EMS leaders from around the world on measuring and improving cardiac arrest survival rates.

Jeffrey Sluys

Owner, Healthcare Certifications
Arlington, WA

Jeffrey began his public service mission as Firefighter/EMT and after several years on the job, he realized he wanted to do more for the people he cared for. He then attended Seattle Medic One/Harborview Paramedic Training. There he witnessed first-hand the impact of bystanders equipped with the mindset to make a difference and utilize CPR. After seeing the results of bystanders performing CPR after a Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) Jeffrey had a fire lit within him to bring awareness to the community and help protect life.

In 2014, Jeffrey launched a training organization, Healthcare Certifications, based in Bellingham, WA and developed a team of instructors. Community CPR education was then offered throughout the region and now empowers people all over the Pacific Northwest with the skills of CPR. Healthcare Certification is responsible for the placement of AEDs. In addition, he is also developing courses in emergency airway management and ECG recognition for medical providers, as well as instructing the community in other disciplines, including ACLS, PALS, and PHTLS.

Since January 2019, he has had the opportunity to serve as Chairperson of the Western States Community Sub-Committee for the American Heart Association. Within this capacity he has opportunity to work with people with a similar passions across 10 states. He has also co-authored a ‘Community CPR Toolkit’ to help spread best practices and ideas.

Josh Smith

Program Coordinator, Heart Safe Richland
Richland, WA

Over the past 10 years, as an American Heart Association BLS instructor, Josh has been involved in teaching CPR/AED & First Aid to both the general public and health care providers. During this time, it was blatantly obvious his community was willing to learn the lifesaving skills of CPR & AED use. However, it was his team that needed to enhance the delivery model and increase the availability training to more than just the AHA certification classes being offered at the local community college, hospitals and private businesses.

In 2018, Josh encountered an event that he will never forget. After witnessing a woman die after providing the proper ACLS procedure, Josh was responsible for explaining to a loved one, her best friend and father to their children she was deceased. It was after that, that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, he could not sit back and passively provide CPR and AED instruction to the community any longer. He knew they needed to come up with a solution that would engage the city and equip them with the tools necessary to overcome emotions, recognize the emergency at hand, and act.

Due to Josh’s efforts, the community is a safer place to live. He enhanced community awareness surrounding the chain of survival. Josh is responsible for transitioning Heart Safe Richland from a concept to a reality. The Citizens CPR Foundation rewarded his efforts by asking him to participate as a Heart Safe Community program advisory committee member. To date Richland Fire & Emergency Services has designated four Heart Safe Campuses. This program requires 80% of employees in a facility be trained in hands only CPR and have AED’s on site. He has trained over 5,000 people in hands only CPR, facilitated a chain of survival video, and continues to build partnerships throughout the city and region.

Nichole Steffens

Senior Product Manager, American Red Cross
Union Beach, NJ

Nichole’s interest in preparedness and survival started as a teenager. She became a Red Cross lifeguard at age 15 and then became a Red Cross lifeguard Instructor, teaching CPR for five years to other lifeguards. In 2010, Nichole joined the Red Cross, working specifically in Training Services on resuscitation, preparedness, and first aid courses and products. It was a natural extension of her early life saving work.

Nichole Steffens is the product manager for the new American Red Cross Resuscitation Suite BLS, ALS and PALS courses. She led the cross-functional team that brought these courses to market, which involved more than two dozen people from sales, service delivery, science and IT as well as the inaugural user of this product line, the Military Training Network. Development work began in 2017 and the courses were successfully launched under Nichole’s leadership in 2019. Additionally, Nichole was the product manager for the 2017 update to the Red Cross CPR/AED for Professional Rescuers course, which teaches one- and two-rescuer CPR, ventilation, AED, assessment and choking skills.

Andrew Turner Au

Business Owner & Instructor
Great Falls, Virginia

Andrew first learned about first aid, CPR and AED training in scouting where he recalls loving the hands-on experience. At age 16, he became a Red Cross volunteer and instructor. He enjoyed teaching and empowering people to make a difference while also growing his medical knowledge. When he started working for the federal government, he was asked to teach for his unit which led to him teaching the district and further.

Andrew provides dozens of free classes for nonprofits with American Red Cross certification at the end of each class. His business empowers every person, regardless of age, to take action and how to perform CPR or use a AED. He continues to give free certification classes because he sees it is making a difference in the field. He sees how much it helps the victim and their recovery before emergency responders arrive.

Sarah Van Roekel

EMT
Boynton Beach, FL

Sarah had always wanted to be involved in emergency response. It shifted between firefighting, the coast guard, emergency medicine, and trauma surgery. It wasn’t until she interacted with cardiac arrest on a more personal level on March 12th, 2019 that she changed her mind.

Ed Kosiec lost consciousness in the dining room of the Chick-fil-A Sarah was working at. Sarah was the only one to know how to perform CPR at the scene. Due to her previous training from high school, she was able to identify cardiac arrest immediately and begin chest compressions until the paramedics to arrived. Because of something as simple as chest compressions, in conjunction with the firefighters’ rapid response time, it had a huge impact on the outcome of Ed’s survival; it was likely the difference between life or death.

Sarah continues to further her education and seeks to educate as many people as possible about CPR and AED Awareness.

Anthony Verdeja

VP of Strategy & Sales, HeartHero
Denver, CO

Anthony currently works as the VP of Strategy at HeartHero, the distributor of the lowest-cost, easiest-to-use, and most portable AED on the market. Over the past 8-and-a-half years, Anthony has worked in AED sales, placement, distribution, management, and non-profit initiatives across the US and around the world in over 40+ locations.

Through Jacob’s creative and passionate leadership, he has been able to assist in deploying over 40,000 AEDs. In his current role at HeartHero, he is working on deploying a strategy that will multiply these efforts and exponentially increase the amount of lives saved from Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA). He is committed to creating this new strategy which will allow consumers to inquire about device at a much more affordable price point while decreasing the burden of ownership. Additionally, he has developed a program management system to mitigate the risk associated with owning an AED thus increasing the deployment amongst businesses.

Zack and Vanessa Zarrilli

Co-Founders, SureFire CPR
Newport Beach, CA

Saving lives and empowering others to do the same has been a focus for this dynamic duo. Zack had been an EMT since 2002 and worked as a firefighter and paramedic at some of the busiest stations in Orange County. It was during that time, after running many cardiac arrest calls, he became increasingly aware of the lack of bystander CPR and SCA preparedness. In talking with his wife, Vanessa, they set out to try to empower others to act in an emergency. The two talked extensively about the problem and SureFire CPR was started in the living room of their two-bedroom apartment.

Zack would teach the CPR classes and Vanessa would handle the logistics. Vanessa was working full time as a CPA; Zack was working full time as a firefighter/EMT and they both spent all of their free time trying to get the word out to help others learn how to save lives. Their goal was to teach people what it was REALLY like to do CPR; talking about total experience from beginning to end. This was to help dissemble fears so they could have the confidence to be the difference in an emergency.

Since that first class in May of 2009, the two have trained over 135,000 people how to save lives! Today, SureFire CPR covers all Southern California with 4 locations and employs a 58-person team.

Nabil Abdulhay

Clinical Research Coordinator, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Philadelphia, PA

Following an early career in EMS, Nabil started working with the Mobile CPR project, based out Philadelphia. During his work with EMS, we witnessed several cardiac arrests and Nabil served as a vital part of the treatment crew. From this experience, he saw first hand the impact early intervention can make.

For over 2 years, Nabil has served as one of two coordinators for the Mobile CPR project. Along with the one other coordinator, they have trained over 8,000 members of the Philadelphia community in Hands-only CPR. Philadelphia has thousands of members of a higher-than-average risk communities, that likely would not have received the training without this program.

Additionally, Nabil spearheaded the push to include opioid overdose reversal training into the Mobile CPR Project. This expanded the impact of the Mobile CPR project to provide support for a growing proportion of reported cardiac arrests in Philadelphia and the surrounding counties.

In his spare time, Nabil volunteers with Prevention Point in Philadelphia, providing health services, education and support to members of the community suffering from substance use disorder.

Jordan Allen

Certified Athletic Trainer & Citizen COR Instructor
Lakeland, Florida

As an Allied Healthcare professional, being prepared for life threatening injuries is part of Jordan’s job. As an Athletic Trainer, it was also his passion to provide the best medical care possible to his athletes, coaches, and patrons at all athletic events he worked. Jordan also grew up in a medically focused family and knew the importance of life-saving skills from an early age.

In April 2019 at a local high school baseball game, Jordan had to provide CPR and BLS to a baseball coach from the other team. The coach collapsed outside of the dugout and thankfully, Jordan was there and prepared with proper medical supplies. He was able to resuscitate the man with his AED in hand and after several minutes of BLS services.

Now, Jordan advocates around the community about the importance of CPR and having healthcare providers at every local Athletic event. Since this event, 4 full time Athletic Trainers have been hired in Jordan’s school district and he has been blessed to speak at events about the importance of CPR training. Jordan continues to be a Citizen CPR instructor.

Michael Bargeron

Assistant Fire Chief
Charleston, South Carolina

After years in the fire and EMS service, Michael witnessed numerous cardiac arrests. He saw firsthand the benefits that early, quality CPR training can provide to victims of cardiac arrest; specifically, those of sudden cardiac arrest. After having three confirmed cardiac arrest saves with no neuro-deficits, Michael noticed that the one thing they all had in common was early high-performance CPR. This has led him to share the skills and training with everyone he comes in contact with.

Michael’s experience led him to start teaching EMT courses. That was seven years ago. Now, Michael has developed a larger CPR instruction program available to not only first responders but the general public as well.

Over the past two years, the program that Michael developed for his city has trained hundreds of lay people through low cost (cost of the cards only) CPR training that is presented by the fire department. As this program developed and grew, he expanded the classes from walk-in classes on the weekends to set classes at the senior center during the week and offerings to Girl Scouts and Scouts of America leaders as well as participants. The program has now extended into babysitting classes for the youth that teaches them how to perform CPR on infants and children as well as what to do in a choking situation. The most recent growth in the program has taken it into a local college as CPR being a requirement to complete a course.

The high number of CPR certified people with the department’s city limits has also led to a significant increase in available AED’s with the cost being absorbed by the city at the approval of the city council.

Christian Bey

Program Educator, University of California San Diego (USCD)
San Diego, CA

Over the course of Christian Bey’s undergraduate career at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), he developed a keen interest in sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) care and prevention as part of his pursuit of education and training in emergency medical services. Christian began his EMT training in the summer of 2017 alongside many of his colleagues and was eager to find a position thereafter. However, upon completion of his training, he realized he wanted to do more than work as an EMT. He became aware of the educational and outreach aspects of EMS operations and began to appreciate their relevance to patient care and survival outcome in many areas, most notably CPR. Instead of applying for transport jobs during the fall quarter like the rest of his EMT class cohort, Christian began to discover how he could use his EMT training to support SCA outreach and education on the UCSD campus.

By 2018, Christian’s team had formally taught dozens of students hands-only sidewalk CPR events. He then began to create other educational workshops based on clinical EMT skills. Concurrently, he spearheaded a related, on-going project with UCSD to create a student-run EMS system that used student EMTs to respond to medical calls and staff events on campus. Throughout the development phases of the EMS system, he became familiar with SCA prevention and outcome activities by the Emergency Management Division of UCSD and San Diego Project Heartbeat.

Christian further began to realize that one of the most important aspects besides proper technique is early recognition and intervention. By teaching CPR to staff and students Christian wanted to ensure more individuals were prepared to recognize the signs of early cardiac arrest and, most importantly, understood the impact that the timing and quality of their care would have on patients’ survival outcomes.

The students, medical professionals, and most notably, cardiac arrest survivors whom he has encountered have reaffirmed his belief in the efficacy in SCA prevention programs and his desire to pursue medicine as a career path. Christian looks forward to continuing to teach CPR classes for EMS as a graduate student at UCSD. He is eager to remain a leader and innovator of EMS at UCSD’s initiatives in SCA management and prevention and continue to grow alongside the university and its surrounding community.

Audrey Blewer

Assistant Professor, Duke University
Durham, NC

Motivated by her grandfather’s struggle with heart disease, Audrey completed her Master’s in Public Health in Social and Behavioral Sciences from the University of Florida, where she gained initial training in cardiovascular public health research and exposure to behavioral science concepts. After obtaining her degree, she pursued a position with Dr. Benjamin Abella at the Center for Resuscitation Science, Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) that blended her interest in cardiovascular health and emergency medicine. There she studied cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training dissemination strategies, cardiac arrest epidemiology, and clinical trial enrollment. During her time there, she became the Principal Investigator (PI) of a Mentored Clinical and Population Grant from the American Heart Association (AHA) examining national CPR training and bystander CPR disparities.

Currently, Audrey has served as an author of 28 publications, 11 of which she is the first author. Her focus touches on topics such as: resuscitation education, pragmatic clinical trials, and implementation science scholarship, with a concentration on cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) education. It has been an integral in the development and execution of an ongoing pragmatic clinical trial examining several CPR training dissemination strategies in her department. Through work conducted for her doctoral degree, Audrey examined racial and socioeconomic disparities in bystander CPR training and delivery. Her long term goal is to establish herself as a renowned cardiovascular epidemiologist and implementation scientist with the methods and skills to improve outcomes from sudden cardiac arrest and reduce the public health burden of cardiovascular disease.

Dave Buckler

Research Project Manager, Center for Resuscitation Science – University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

Ever since a young age, Dave has been interested in First Aid and emergency preparedness. Having continuously been CPR certified from 1992 it seemed a natural fit when Dave applied to work as a clinical research assistant with the Center for Resuscitation Science for a CPR education study. Little did he know when he started with the team at the University of Pennsylvania almost 8 years ago, cardiac arrest research and resuscitation would become so central to his career.

For the past 8 years, Dave has grown from a research assistant with little experience in resucitaton to a data scientist and project lead. In addition to his work on various resuscitation related research projects, Dave also supports the Mobile CPR project, a community-based CPR education program, as the project manager and serves as the data coordinator for the CPR Ready Coalition in Philadelphia. He has now published 2 first-author resuscitation manuscripts related to cardiac arrest care and CPR education. Multiple other published manuscripts in the resuscitation realm as middle author.

Through data work, Dave has been able to shine a light on areas of need in the community, in addition to tracking performance and improvement over time. Dave represents a somewhat unique combination of academic data person and community activist/organizer. By combining the two he hopes to improve cardiac arrest survival throughout Philadelphia and abroad.

Michael Duda

Commercial Accounts Manager, LifeSavers Inc
Verona, NJ

Michael’s interest in first aid and CPR began during his time in boy scouts. He quickly became the go to scout for all the first aid and safety training within the troop. At age 15, Michael took a CPR and & First Aid class as a requirement for a camp counselor job and was hooked.

Michael has been with LifeSavers, Inc for 20 years. Over that time, Michael has taught countless numbers of training courses, worked with school districts in New Jersey and throughout the country to set up CPR and AED programs, and has worked with administrators, and educators to get their programs producing thousands of newly trained responders in communities every year. Michael has been an outspoken proponent of CPR and First Aid trained throughout his community. He has personally training youth sports coaches, civic organizations, and local school teachers to ensure everyone can be prepared.

Jennifer Edwards

Director of Operations, Advanced Coronary Treatment (ACT) Foundation
Ottawa, Ontario

Jennifer comes from a long line of nurses. Her mother, grandmother and great grandmother were all nurses. From an early childhood, she knew she wanted to follow in their footsteps, but was unsure of what path it would lead her down.

After completing her undergraduate degree, she discovered the ACT Foundation whose mission and dedication is focused on moving the needle on sudden cardiac survival rates through ensuring youth are empowered with CPR and AED skills. Jennifer’s outstanding commitment and passion for saving lives from sudden cardiac arrest, coupled with her incredible professionalism, expertise, skills and talent has driven her rise up the ranks from administrative assistant through program coordination, manager, to Director of Operations in just over 10 years.

Over that time, she has played a major role in the establishment of the ACT High School CPR and Defibrillator Program in over 1,800 high schools across Canada. Over 4.6 million youth are now empowered to save lives with CPR training in the Canadian education system.

Jennifer’s commitment to citizen CPR training has also motivated her to become a certified CPR and AED Instructor and travel to many Canadian rural, remote and First Nation communities to deliver the CPR and AED training herself to youth to ensure they have the same opportunities for this lifesaving training as their urban peers.

Adam Fritsch

Founder, Advanced Professional Healthcare Education, LLC
Delefield, WI

Adam became a firefighter and ambulance driver in 2003 in Northern Wisconsin. At the time, the local ambulance services were proposing a Public Access AED (PAD) program that was meeting fierce resistance from the public. People were afraid that the unsupervised AEDs were going to be used for harm rather than good due to lack of education. As a result, in 2005, he became an AHA BLS Instructor. In his classes, he would teach about the benefits of CPR and early AED use.

Last year, while working as a firefighter/paramedic, Adam and his crew were caring for a man who had syncope. During the transport to the hospital, the man became unresponsive and pulseless. Adam immediately began compressions and defibrillated once within 10 seconds. After 2 minutes of compressions, the man had a pulse and began to wake up.

As a young paramedic, Adam founded Advanced Professional Healthcare Education LLC because he found himself teaching CPR with other CPR instructors who were there to do a job but did not have much passion for what they were teaching. Adam really wanted to change that. He wanted his company to provide an atmosphere of excitement and importance about the good that we all could do with what we are teaching. Thirteen years and 90,000 participants later, Adam’s company, APHE, has literally impacted hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of family members of people who attempted and were successful with resuscitation.

Travis Fults

Student
Morris, Minnesota

Travis is a 15 year young man from Donnelly, MN who was instrumental in saving his dad’s life from SCA in 2016. He participated in CPR and AED training at his local high school, conducted by the local EMS organization and because of that he recognized the urgency of the situation with his dad and took action. Travis was home alone with his dad when his dad collapsed from SCA. Travis knew exactly what to do. He called 911 and with the help of dispatcher-assisted CPR, started CPR on his dad. The local first responder team arrived and used their AED. The local ambulance service arrived and defibrillated several more times. Without Travis’ quick reflexes and knowledge of SCA and CPR, his dad might not be here today.

Lana Gent

Director of Community Markets, American Heart Association
Dallas, TX

Lana has served as the American Heart Association’s Director of Emergency Cardiovascular Care Science for over six years. During her time on the team, Lana made it her mission to positively change cardiac arrest survival statistics for the better by providing up to date comprehensive information on how to perform high-quality CPR.

Lana is the Program Lead for the AHA’s Hands-Only CPR program. Through the Hands-Only CPR program, the American Heart Association has installed 40+ Hands-Only CPR Kiosks in high traffic locations across the US. All-time total number of visitors for all kiosks has reached nearly 500,000 and over 250,000 have been trained in Hands-Only CPR. The AHA has also created several engaging Public Service Announcements about Hands-Only CPR that have generated millions of views. Each year, the AHA conducts a nationwide tour that brings Hands-Only CPR and AED training to underserved communities. This year, the tour is expected to train more than 8,000 people in-person and up to 20,000 residually through videos and lessons from those in-person.

Additionally, Lana is the lead or co-author of multiple scientific articles relating to resuscitation. Lana was the science lead for the development of the CPR in Schools™ Training Kit and model legislation. This legislation has led to over 2 million students trained annually in 39 states and the District of Columbia. Lana was the product lead for new CPR & First Aid Anywhere and CPR & First Aid in Youth Sports™ Training Kits which will help raise cardiac arrest awareness to new audiences.

Joseph Griego

CEO, Caretactics CPR
Albuquerque, NM

Joe was a corpsman in the US Navy, Firefighter, Police Officer/SWAT Medic, and Set Medic in the film industry before owning and operating one of the largest CPR training companies in New Mexico. His business, Caretactics CPR, trains over 300 community members per month in various life saving skills. Joe has done community outreach training for Special Olympics, Little League, and The Boy Scouts of America. He has developed a free hands only CPR training initiative for low income families of the Albuquerque area. As a veteran, firefighter, and police officer, he has gone above and beyond to serve his country and community as a public servant. Joe has also volunteered at local hospitals to teach new parents skills in infant CPR and first aid. He will continue to do so.

Brandon Griffith

Training & Recognition Officer, Arizona Cardiac Arrest Survivors, Inc
Glendale, AZ

A witness and SCA survivor himself, Brandon has an invested interest in sudden cardiac arrest and survival. Brandon uses his second chance at life to do incredible work in the cardiac community.

Brandon got involved in emergency cardiac response before his incident and before becoming a first responder. He first did CPR on a patient when he was Junior High; he lost the man and was the one to tell the patient’s family. Brandon became an EMT after that and utilized CPR multiple times during his work in the private sector. Brandon later became a police officer and was fortunate to work for an agency that equipped their officers with AEDs. He responded to countless calls for service, performed CPR, and utilized his AED multiple times. He went on to become a training officer and an industry expert on police cardiac response.

Brandon quickly realized how unprepared the vast majority of law enforcement is for cardiac emergencies. Brandon decided to start his own company “Griffith Blue Heart” where he trains, prepares, and equips Arizona law enforcement agencies for cardiac emergencies. Brandon developed an unprecedented program to help implement AED programs and innovative CCR training.

Brandon was brought in by the American Heart Association in 2016 to testify before Arizona Senate and the House of Representatives on the CPR in Schools bill. Brandon testified and spoke before the Senate and House multiple times. Because of his testimony, now every student in the state of Arizona has to learn CPR as a graduation requirement.

The ambitious young man has also started a new nonprofit to raise money for police agencies and purchase AEDs, provide high-quality CCR/CPR training with realistic field based scenarios, and conduct research and tracking on police emergency cardiac response. The nonprofit has just been incorporated and is called “Dynamic Cardiac CARE” (CARE is an acronym for “Cops Advancing Resuscitation Excellence).

Nathan Harig

Assistant EMS Chief, Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Carlisle, PA

One of Nathan’s first calls as a young junior firefighter was responding to cardiac arrest call for the father of a childhood friend of his. He hadn’t even taken his first CPR class at that time. It was ultimately that incident that inspired him to earn his first certification, which led him on a path that included an EMS certification and to his current job.

In 2013, after Pennsylvania rolled out their High-Performance CPR protocol, Nathan designed a contest for his crew that used video-performance in order to train compliance. As a result, his idea was picked up by the Heart Rescue Project in Pennsylvania and became a state-wide contest. In addition to this, he also ran a halftime “hands-only” CPR training at a local high school football game and has developed a quality improvement program for cardiac arrests that looks at KQIs vs simple survival rates.

Christopher Hagan

President of Emergency Medical Services, University of California San Diego
Santee, CA

Christopher knew at an early age he wanted to do something. Something that could make an impact. When he was 12, he witnessed his father collapse on a plane ride home after visiting a treatment center for cancer in the Bahamas. His father passed on the way to the hospital from SCA. Christopher’s personal experience about bystander CPR or the chain of survival, it was more importantly about the love, compassion and the need to do something in the event of an emergency. He strongly believes that if we teach more people about what they can do in the face of cardiac arrest – and if we can even allow one person the chance to save their family member from a sudden cardiac arrest – that all our efforts are worthwhile.

Now, Christopher is the President of Emergency Medical Services at UCSD – which is an undergraduate student-run organization at the University of California, San Diego that provides both free hands-only CPR training and discounted AHA CPR certification courses. The organization’s goal this year is to expand the reach into the UCSD community by putting on one hands-only CPR event per month on campus. Brandon is currently working on getting certified as CPR instructor in order to host an increased number of AHA CPR certification courses on campus. To increase the reach into the community, they’re lowering the prices significantly to accommodate a typical student’s budget and they’re creating bulk discounts for people to save even more money if they bring one or more of their friends to get trained.

Xavier Hendrix

Pre-Med Student, Southeastern University
Palm Bay, FL

In 2017, Xavier, moved to Southeastern University’s campus for his freshman year of college. He was welcomed onto the football team and at that time, was seeking his degree in physical therapy/pre kinesiology. Later that semester, the organization Who We Play For came to the university and provided heart screenings to the athletes. Xavier presented with an abnormal arrhythmia and was encouraged to see a doctor about the abnormality. He eventually underwent surgery to open a pathway in his heart in 2018 that was successfully ablated. Xavier never had any symptoms to indicate an issue. He could have been a statistic and lost his life to sudden cardiac arrest on the field had he not gone through the screening.

Xavier volunteers throughout the state of Florida alongside Who We Play For providing EKG’s for athletes at the middle, high school and collegiate levels. As the Vice President of the Student Christian Medical and Dental Association chapter on his campus, he arranges all the volunteers to screen his university three times per year capturing all athletes, new and incoming along with any transfer students. In April 2018, Xavier along with the Southeastern University Athletic Director, Drew Watson and the Executive Director of Who We Play For, Evan Ernst, were invited to speak at the National Association Of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) annual conference sharing his story and how Who We Play For operates. To date, several universities throughout the country have reached out to inquire how they can implement these screenings in their state.

Henriette Himmelstrup Moeller

Team Manager, Danish AED Network
Kastrup, Denmark

As the manager of Danish AED Network, Henriette is in charge of maintaining regular contact with AED owners to validate research data and ensure continued quality and correctness of that data, activate and deactivate AEDs when they have been in use or have been referred to by the emergency medical dispatch center, and support the emergency medical dispatch center in returning used AEDs to the rightful owners after usage. She also provides phone support to companies, laymen, and other stakeholders primarily regarding the use of AEDs, processes regarding used AEDs, and the Danish Heart Runner Project.

Carly Jackson, BSc., MSc.

Public Access Defibrillator Specialist & Medical Device Consultant
Barrie, Ontario

Carly Jackson holds expertise in the field of Public Resuscitation and Public Access Defibrillators. Carly’s work in this space cemented her as one of the leading sales representatives and Automated External Defibrillators (AED) Specialists, with a focus on thoroughly understanding all the public access devices on the market. During this time Carly worked directly with various global leaders in AED device manufacturing, distributors across Canada and the USA, and local non profit groups. Carly was successful in developing a network across Canada of licensed distributors who acted to re-sell these defibrillators and their accessories to end users.

Her commitment to having the public fully understand sudden cardiac arrest, when & how to use a defibrillator – led her to working with a team of passionate individuals who were committed to make a universal standard for all AED’s. This project culminated in the public education movement which was taken out to the Canadian and American market in 2019. During this time Carly was responsible on a global scale for community engagement and held the position titled, director of distribution. Carly was most widely recognized as the brand ambassador for this movement and product line. During this time Carly not only directly managed all of the distribution partners, but she was successful in gaining the product the award for “New Product of the Year 2019” by Occupational Health & Safety.

In 2020 Carly has spent the majority of her time working with various AED distributors & non-profits to grow their business, expand their marketing campaigns, develop new products, and forge new partnerships amongst others in the industry. One of Carly’s main goals is to help her various clients collaborate with each other in an effort to make safer communities.

Sameer Jafri

President/COO, Avive Solutions, Inc.
San Francisco, CA

While still an undergraduate at UCLA, Sameer turned his experience with personal loss into a lasting impact through starting a Los Angeles based non-profit called Saving Hearts Foundation, that focuses on cardiac arrest prevention in youth via free ECG screening. Saving Hearts is now functioning as a sustainable foundation, screening over 5500 high school students in the just 5 years (and have found over 40 students with cardiac abnormalities requiring a second opinion). Through the heart screening program, Saving Hearts has also taught hands-only CPR to over 5,000 students. Today, due to the infrastructure and ongoing guidance Sameer provides, Saving Hearts is still a student-run non-profit that screens 1,000 students in the Los Angeles area per year.

In 2017, Sameer teamed up with two other students from MIT with similar interests and ambition, and founded Avive Solutions, a San Francisco-based company that is building a next-generation AED and revolutionary software to improve time to defibrillation. Since its founding, Avive has raised nearly $10M in funding from venture capitalists and renowned medical device investors and hired over 20 leaders from the medical device industry to help bring its game-changing AED to the masses. Sameer seeks to make Avive the most accessible and portable AED unit on the market, so that it will be available to anyone in need, regardless of their age, location, or other demographics. To help ensure accessibility, Avive will be smaller, lighter, more portable, and more affordable than any AED on the market today, and it will be coupled with first of its kind software solutions that will ensure an AED gets to a patient where and when it’s needed.

Troop 3803

Girl Scout Troop 3803
La Jolla, CA

Five Girl Scouts from Troop 3803 in San Diego became passionate about the importance of CPR training and use of AEDs in the community in 2013 when one of their father’s suffered a Sudden Cardiac Arrest. He survived due to receiving high quality lay person CPR in the field before first responders arrived on scene. Since that event, the girls became interested in advocating for CPR training and propagation of AEDs in the community.

They were involved with trainings at their elementary school, Bird Rock Elementary, but as they transitioned to middle and high school, they wanted to work together on this initiative for their Girl Scout Silver Award. The girls researched about the SADS Foundation Heart Safe School Accreditation and decided it would be a great tool to advocate for increased CPR/AED awareness and training in their own community. They had several meetings with school leadership, the parent teacher association, and within their troop to support the initiative. The girls were personally involved with CPR training at Muirlands Middle School for both 7th and 8th graders and faculty. They led three Emergency Response Drills at the school, filming and debriefing the faculty involved in the drills. They worked with the school leadership and the school nurse to develop Cardiac Emergency Care Plans for children identified with possible cardiac issues and they handed out risk assessment forms for all students. It is their hope that this type of accreditation will be attained by other schools within the community, therefore continuing to increase awareness about the importance of CPR/AED training.

Connor Weisman

Executive Director, Greater Williamsburg HEARTSafe Alliance
Williamsburg, VA

In 2018, Connor was hired by Greater Williamsburg HEARTSafe Alliance to implement a new local program. Since then, Connor has become deeply passionate about cardiac arrest preparedness. He has learned so much from the fire chiefs and EMS agencies that are in partnership with the program. Connor started a training committee shortly after he was hired that would be instrumental in creating incredible efficiencies in the HEARTSafe training process. Because of his hard work, trainings have become so refined the team can train 20-30 people in less than 45 minutes.

Part of the HEARTSafe program includes free hands only CPR training. Since launching the training program in February 2019, the team has trained over 1,000 people and seen multiple cardiac arrest victims survive due, in-part, to hands-only CPR.

Jennifer Hayes, MSN, RN, CCRN-K

Orange, California

November 9, 2017 was like any other day for Jennifer Hayes. She was 30 weeks into a perfect pregnancy with her second son. Then that evening, after putting their 3 year old son to bed, she collapsed at the foot of his bed and became the victim of a sudden cardiac arrest. Her husband Kyle heard her fall and rushed to check on her. He found her face down, unresponsive, having a seizure.

Knowing he had to act quickly for the sake of her life and that of their unborn son, he immediately called 911 and was instructed by the dispatcher to start CPR. In that moment, he recalled their neighbor Russ, a police officer, was home. Kyle immediately ran across the street and pounded on Russ’ door. Not waiting for an answer, Kyle rushed back home and began CPR, with guidance from the dispatcher. Meanwhile, Russ was perplexed by the panicked knock on his door and the fact that no one was standing there when he answered. He quickly noticed the Hays’ front door was open and entered the home to check on them. Immediately, he was summoned upstairs and took over CPR until EMS arrived.

Upon EMS arrival, Jennifer was in ventricular fibrillation and received two shocks from the defibrillator, code medications, and was intubated. A CPR feedback device was used by the responding team to ensure high quality compressions were performed throughout the resuscitation. In total, she received over 15 minutes of CPR, was taken to a local hospital, then subsequently airlifted to a higher level of care. Their son Micah Hayes was born nearly seven hours later by emergency C-section at 30 weeks. Following the C-section, targeted temperature management was initiated. Jennifer was discharged eight days after her cardiac arrest, only suffering some weakness and short term memory loss. Micah spent 71 days in the NICU before being discharged home. Thanks to the quick actions of her husband calling 911, eliciting help, and starting CPR, both Micah and Jennifer made full recoveries with no deficits. She has since returned to my her job as the Resuscitation Coordinator at the local Children’s Hospital.

For years, she has had a passion to improve CPR quality and cardiac arrest outcomes and now as a survivor, that passion is deeper than ever. Jennifer hope to use her families story of survival to empower many bystanders to learn and perform CPR, communities to become heart safe, and first responders and hospitals to develop programs that promote high quality resuscitation. In their case, CPR didn’t just save one life, it saved two.

Jennifer Hayes

Stuart Berger, MD

Chair, Task Force on SCA in Youth

Dr. Berger is Executive Director, Heart Center; Pediatric Heart Center, Lurie Children’s Hospital Vice Chair; Clinical Affairs Pediatrics, Lurie Children’s Hospital.

It is under Dr. Bergerâ€™s direction that Project ADAM was established, in November of 1999, after the sudden, unexpected deaths of several student athletes in Southeastern Wisconsin. He along with others advocated for passage of the ADAM Act in the United States Congress, a bill that will provide funding for a national clearinghouse for the dissemination of information that will assist schools establish AED programs.

Dr. Berger has published several papers, chapters and has edited books in the field of pediatric cardiology as well as on the topic of sudden cardiac death in children and adolescents.

David B. Hiltz

SUMMIT PROGRAM CHAIR

Director of Quality at Code One Training Solutions, LLC.

David’s current role is as the Director of Quality at Code One Training Solutions, LLC. In this position, David works to assist organizations to improve their systems of care for cardiac arrest and ensure that responders are ready, willing and able to act when faced with a medical emergency. He is an active volunteer with professional organizations such as the American College of Cardiology, the Citizen CPR Foundation and a number of other not-for-profit groups. David has extensive background in cardiac arrest systems of care through his work at Code One and with the American Heart Association where he gained substantial experience in education, implementation, strategy development, and in helping systems achieve improved outcomes.

David is focused on helping bystanders to be ready, willing, and able to act. Additionally, he supports the concept that care provided by our EMS agencies must occur within a system that coordinates and integrates each facet of care into a choreographed group effort, focusing on survival to discharge from the hospital.

His strategic leadership is enhanced by an innate and practiced ability to convey complex information in a clear and concise manner to all levels within the decision making spectrum.

Tom P. Aufderheide, MD

AT-LARGE MEMBER

Dr. Tom Aufderheide is a Professor of Emergency Medicine with Tenure and Associate Chair of Research Affairs and Director of the NIH-funded Resuscitation Research Center in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He is a nationally and internationally recognized researcher in the field of emergency cardiac care, whose scholarly achievements include numerous state-of-the-art research studies and over 250 peer-reviewed publications that have had a significant impact on the practice of emergency medicine, including prehospital identification and treatment of the ischemic patient with the use of prehospital 12-lead electrocardiography and predictive instruments. He has served as principal and co-principal investigator on many important national studies, including the Public Access Defibrillation (PAD) Trial, which doubled survival rates for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and provided the objective data on which to base national healthcare policy.

Dr. Aufderheide is one of a handful of nationally recognized researchers actively engaged and NIH-supported in the complex area of out-of-hospital cardiac resuscitation research that is likely to significantly change national and international CPR education, training, and clinical practice, including the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (ROC), Neurological Emergencies Treatment Trials (NETT), and Strategies to Innovate Emergency Care Clinical Trials (SIREN) networks.

Brandon Griffith

Griffith Blue Heart/Dynamic Cardiac Care 501.C3 Nonprofit

Brandon Griffith is a police officer and out of hospital sudden cardiac arrest survivor having survived at the age of 26. Brandon is the country’s leading expert on police cardiac response and law enforcement AED program implementation. Brandon is a former EMT and advanced law enforcement Instructor. Brandon is the owner/founder of Griffith Blue Heart where he prepares, trains, and equips law enforcement for cardiac emergencies. He also has the honor of serving as the President/CEO of Dynamic Cardiac Care 501.C3 nonprofit.

Brandon is a current Citizen CPR Foundation 40 Under 40 committee member after being selected to win the CCPRF 40 Under 40 award as a member of the 2019 class. He also sits on the Arizona Heart and Stroke Health Improvement Program board and is a founding member of Arizona Cardiac Arrest Survivors.

Brandon has been fortunate to use his advanced training and skills in the field where he has been credited with multiple life saves. He created an innovative advanced Cardio-Cerebral Resuscitation training course specifically for law enforcement. Brandon’s motto is “Earn Each Day” and he strives to make the biggest impact on SCA survival he can and earn his second chance at life. Brandon’s proudest accomplishment in life is being a father and husband.

Lance Timmons

Training Specialist, American Red Cross
San Diego, CA

Lance Timmons began his career in resuscitative care advocacy in 2016 as a Beach Director with Connecticut’s State Parks Lifeguard Program. In this position, he oversaw all training, operations, and emergency response protocol, which set a foundation for the beginning of a career within the American Red Cross.

Within the American Red Cross, and with an emphasis on high quality Lifeguarding/CPR/AED training, Lance Timmons combined previous industry knowledge with the formal Aquatics Examiner Service. With this, he improved the safety of community visitors of all types of aquatic facilities.

Lance later transitioned to oversee the growth, implementation, and development of CARES (Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival) in the state of Connecticut. The registry sought to collect invaluable SCA data elements and allowed for easily accessible metrics. As a result, this led to an increase in discussions focused on the improvement of the EMS systems within Connecticut. CARES now, and continues to be, a standing agenda item on statewide EMS advisory boards, councils, and committee meetings.

Today, Lance lives in San Diego where he is continuing his passion to promote, increase, and improve all levels of training throughout Southern California, Hawaii, and the Pacific Islands.

Pavitra Kotini-Shah, MD

Primary and Secondary Prevention, Disparities in Cardiovascular Health and a Vision for the Future

HEARTSafe Community Champions Webinar:

Tuesday, February 9, 2021
Tuesday, February 8, 2022 (co-host)

Dr. Pavitra Kotini-Shah graduated from Eastern Virginia Medical School in 2011. She completed her Emergency Medicine residency at William Beaumont Hospital, Michigan. She currently works as an Emergency Medicine physician in Chicago, Illinois. She also serves as an Assistant Professor and Assistant Director of Ultrasound and Resuscitation Fellowship at University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Kotini-Shah does research on cardiac strain, diastolic dysfunction, and use of ultrasound in sickle cell patients…read more.

Stacey Rosen, MD

Primary and Secondary Prevention, Disparities in Cardiovascular Health and a Vision for the Future

HEARTSafe Community Champions Webinar -Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Dr. Stacey Ellyn Rosen is Vice President, Women’s Health, Katz Institute for Women’s Health at North Shore-LIJ Health System and a practicing cardiologist and echocardiographer. She was formerly the Associate Chairman of the Department of Cardiology at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. She is Associate Professor of Medicine at Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine, served as Director of the Fellowship Program in Cardiovascular Disease for the past decade and currently serves as co-Director of the Homeostasis Course…read more.

Nancy Brown, Chief Executive Officer

Primary and Secondary Prevention, Disparities in Cardiovascular Health and a Vision for the Future

HEARTSafe Community Champions Webinar – Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Nancy Brown is Chief Executive Officer of the American Heart Association (AHA). The Association is a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives dedicated to ensuring equitable health for all – in the U.S. and around the world. Serving as CEO since 2008, Nancy has elevated the AHA as a global leader in heart disease and stroke science innovation. Under her leadership and 30+ year AHA career, the Association established the first-ever definition of “cardiovascular health” and just announced its bold 2030 global aspiration.“Together with global and local collaborators, we will equitably increase worldwide healthy life expectancy from 64 to at least 67, by 2030.” The Association’s work is led by over 40 million volunteers, scientists, staff and donors. Read more.

Greg Page, Founding member of the popular children's music group The Wiggles

Survival and Recovery from SCA with Greg Page

HEARTSafe Community Champions Webinar
• January 11, 2022
• January 12, 2021

Greg Page was best known as the original Yellow Wiggle – having started his career with his three founding-Wiggle mates, Murray Cook, Jeff Fatt, and Anthony Field almost 30 years ago. Together, these Wiggly friends performed more than 6,000 concerts together all over the world. They have performed to more than 3 million paying customers, sold more than 24 million DVD’s, and sold out the theatre at Madison Square Garden 13 times in one week!
However, Greg is now possibly best known as The Wiggle who had a cardiac arrest on stage – and survived. After having left the group back in 2006 due to ill-health (nothing to do with his recent cardiac arrest), he had been out of the group for a long time – but the generation of fans that grew up with Page and the rest of the originals, are now in their late 20’s to early thirty’s, and that means the mix of Original Wiggles songs and a pub-rock environment is ripe for lots of innocent fun!
But that fun turned to near death for Greg when at the end of the most recent performance by the group, raising funds for bushfire relief, one of his arteries blocked 100% and caused a sudden cardiac arrest. If not for the quick thinking and life-saving skills of bystanders, chances are Greg would have died. His life was saved because of CPR and an AED at Castle Hill RSL Club that was brought to the stage and used to revert his heart to a normal rhythm in time for paramedics to arrive and stabilize him until he received life-saving surgery.
Upon waking up in recovery, Greg was told that his chances of surviving that type of cardiac arrest were only 1 in 10. That means he had a 90% of not making it that night. This rocked Greg. The fact that 90% of people who have a sudden cardiac arrest out of hospital do not survive, was a hard-hitting stat that he couldn’t ignore.
And so, now on a mission, Greg’s purpose is to educate others about the importance of knowing CPR, and making AED’s more available in public places and in homes – but not only that, making sure that people know where to find an AED, by introducing a new initiative called “Heart of the Nation” which is a “badge of honor” like the Australian Made Campaign, which businesses everywhere can place on their entry doors, letting the community know that they have an AED inside if it is ever needed to save a life, just as Greg’s was.

Christopher L.F. Sun, PhD

Effect of Optimized Versus Guidelines-Based AED Placement on Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Coverage: An In Silico Trial

HEARTSafe Community Champions Webinar – Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Christopher Sun is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management and Massachusetts General Hospital. His research interests lie at the intersection of optimization, machine learning, and healthcare delivery. He is particularly focused on 1) establishing actionable recommendations to optimize healthcare systems, 2) integrating emerging technologies and medicines into current healthcare practices, and 3) developing artificial intelligence approaches to improve the diagnosis, treatment, and management of patients. His work has been conducted in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, USA), St. Michael’s Hospital (Toronto, Canada), and Gentofte Hospital (Copenhagen, Denmark). He received his BASc in Engineering Science (Biomedical Engineering) and PhD in Industrial Engineering from the University of Toronto.

Ann Doll, Executive Director of the Resuscitation Academy Foundation

Challenges in Implementation, Accountability and Leadership in Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest

HEARTSafe Community Champions Webinar – Tuesday, September 8, 2020

HEARTSafe Community Champions Webinar – Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Ann is the Executive Director of the Resuscitation Academy Foundation. Working with faculty and staff from our partner organizations, Ann helped create the RA in 2008. Ann also serves as the Secretariat for the Global Resuscitation Alliance, a coalition of leaders from around the world committed to saving 50,000 additional lives per year from cardiac arrest by 2025.

Mickey Eisenberg, MD, PhD

Challenges in Implementation, Accountability and Leadership in Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest

HEARTSafe Community Champions Webinar – Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Dr. Eisenberg is Director of Medical QI at the King County Emergency Medicine Services and Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Washington. He has studied cardiac arrest and developed innovative programs to treat this condition for 40 years. He is the author of, “Resuscitate! How your Community Can Improve Survival from Sudden Cardiac Arrest” (University of Washington Press), as well as numerous books and articles on cardiac arrest.

Dr. Katie Dainty

CPR, Citizenship and Survivorship: Psychosocial Implications of Cardiac Arrest

HEARTSafe Community Champions Webinar:

Tuesday, November 10, 2020
Tuesday, January 11, 2022 (co-host)

Dr. Katie Dainty is a qualitative and mixed methods scientist and is the Research Chair in Patient-Centred Outcomes at North York General Hospital. She graduated with her PhD from the University of Toronto in 2010 and in addition to her appointment at North York General, she is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME) at the University of Toronto. Katie brings an extensive background in both clinical and implementation research and has designed and evaluated several innovative projects, with an emphasis on health care quality, knowledge translation and health systems improvement.
Dr. Dainty’s research interests are studying how organizational and sociocultural variables shape health care quality improvement and patient-centred outcomes. Her main focus is on using qualitative research methods to understand the experiences of survivors, family members and lay responders of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and bring her findings to bear on thinking around innovation in approaches to improving bystander CPR and support for survivors and families post-discharge. She is also the founder of the Bystander Support Network (www.bystandernetwork.org).
Dr. Dainty is Co-Chair of the Public Engagement Committee of the Canadian Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium and is also a member of the American Heart Association Subcommittee on Science. She was awarded the inaugural Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Rising Star Award for Knowledge Translation, a Young Investigator Award from the American Heart Association and has over 70 academic publications.

Timothy C.Y. Chan, PhD

Effect of Optimized Versus Guidelines-Based AED Placement on Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Coverage: An In Silico Trial

HEARTSafe Community Champions Webinar – Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Timothy Chan is the Canada Research Chair in Novel Optimization and Analytics in Health, a Professor in the department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, the Director of the Centre for Healthcare Engineering, and the Director of the Centre for Analytics and AI Engineering at the University of Toronto. His primary research interests are in optimization under uncertainty and the application of optimization methods to problems in healthcare, medicine, global engineering, sustainability, and sports. He received his B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from the University of British Columbia, and his Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before coming to Toronto, he was an Associate in the Chicago office of McKinsey and Company, a global management consulting firm. During that time, he advised leading companies in the fields of medical device technology, travel and hospitality, telecommunications, and energy on issues of strategy, organization, technology and operations.

Bryan McNally MD, MPH

Bryan F. McNally, MD, MPH is Professor of Emergency Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from Cornell University with an undergraduate degree in Meteorology. He began his formal medical education working as an Emergency Medical Technician and Paramedic in the Harlem and Washington Heights communities for the New York City Emergency Medical Service. He graduated from the Albany Medical College in upstate New York and completed his specialty training in emergency medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York after completing an internship at Boston City Hospital. He subsequently completed a two-year prehospital and disaster/emergency medical services fellowship at Boston Emergency Medical Service. His Masters of Public Health degree is in Health Service Administration from Boston University. He is board certified by the American Board of Emergency Medicine. His areas of expertise are emergency medicine and prehospital and disaster medicine. Dr. McNally is the Executive Director of the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES), a CDC founded quality improvement program to increase survival for out-of hospital cardiac arrest in the United States. He serves as a consultant to the Pan Asian Resuscitation Outcomes Study (PAROS) and is a board member of the Asian EMS Council and a Visiting Professor at Duke National University of Singapore.

Michael Levy, MD, FACEP, FACP, FAEMS

EMS Medical Director, State of Alaska

Anchorage, Alaska

Michael Levy, MD, FACEP, FACP, FAEMS, is an EMS physician and emergency medicine physician practicing in Anchorage, Alaska with a specific practice focus on improving community outcomes in life-threatening time-critical emergencies. He has practiced emergency medicine for over three decades.

As an emergency physician, he has provided front-line care in remote and urban environments as well as serving in administrative roles including department chair and president of the hospital medical staff. The majority of Dr. Levy’s clinical practice is now EMS medicine. He is the Medical Director and for the Anchorage Fire Department and for Anchorage Area-wide EMS, a position he has held since 1995. He is the Medical Director for Emergency Programs for the State of Alaska and has the honor to serve as the medical director for a number of other Alaska EMS agencies, including being the EMS Medical Director for the Kenai Peninsula Borough, Fairweather LLC, Anchorage Service Patrol among others.

Dr. Levy is the President of the National Association of EMS Physicians, the Alaska PI for the Heart Rescue Project and the president of the Loren Marshall Foundation, a 501(c)3. He is the Chief Medical Advisor for Stryker Emergency Care. He is the Medical Director for Global Medical Response’s International Motorsports Association medical program. Dr. Levy is a faculty member of the Seattle Resuscitation Academy and serves as a senior consultant for the Academy. He has served on a variety of national committees and expert panels and is a published author on a number of scientific articles.

Dr. Levy has been involved in EMS from Chicago to the Navajo Nation and has served as the civilian Medical Director for the Alaska Air National Guard Pararescue Squadron. His goal in EMS is to enable providers to improve the outcome of their patients through personal empowerment via education, training and evidence-based practice.

Dr. Levy’s undergraduate degree was from the CU Boulder, with MD from Northwestern University followed by residencies in Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine with board certifications in both as well as subspecialty boards in EMS Medicine.

He is based in Anchorage, AK where he is an Affiliate Associate Professor with the University of Alaska Health Sciences and practices community-based emergency medicine.

Jerry Overton

President of the the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch

Jerry Overton serves as the President of the the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch, the organization charged with setting standards, establishing curriculum, and conducting research for public safety dispatch worldwide. In addition, he is a member of its Board of Trustees and chairs of its Institutional Review Board. Previously, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Richmond Ambulance Authority (RAA), Richmond, Virginia, and prior served as the Chief Executive of the Kansas City, Missouri, EMS system. In addition, he provides technical assistance throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, having most recently providing assistance to upgrade the EMS system for the country of Lebanon. He is the Past President of the American Ambulance Association, was a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on the Future of Emergency Care in the U. S. Health System, and was the Chief Financial Officer for the World Association of Disaster and Emergency Medicine. As an expert in EMS system design, he was named one of the 20 most influential leaders in EMS by JEMS magazine and has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of EMTs and the National Registry of EMTs.

James Suozzi, DO, NRP, FACEP

Associate Medical Director of Emergency Medicine and the EMS Medical Director at Cheshire Medical Center / Dartmouth Hitchcock – Keene, NH

Dr. Suozzi has been involved in EMS for over 25 years. He attended medical school at Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and completed his residency training in Emergency Medicine at the University of Connecticut / Hartford Hospital in 2008 and an EMS Fellowship at Hartford Hospital in 2009. He is currently the Associate Medical Director of Emergency Medicine and the EMS Medical Director at Cheshire Medical Center / Dartmouth Hitchcock – Keene, NH. He is also serves as Medical Director for New Hampshire e911 and Vermont EMS District 13 Medical Advisor. He is board certified in Emergency Medicine and Emergency Medical Services.

Kim Harkins

Program Director at the Center for Resuscitation Medicine at the University of Minnesota

Kim Harkins is currently leading the Center for Resuscitation Medicine at the University of Minnesota as Program Director. She coordinates the mobile ECMO project in the Twin Cities metro area. She holds a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Science degree in Education from Crown College.
Kim has worked in EMS, the fire service and emergency education for over 20 years.
She has served as AHA regional faculty, on the EMS Educators State Advisory group and currently participates in the Minnesota Sudden Cardiac Arrest Survivors Network, the American Heart Association and various projects such as Heart Safe Community Designation.

Tim Williams

Founder and Chief Consultant for The 110 Group, LLC

Tim Williams is the Founder and Chief Consultant for The 110 Group, LLC. A veteran owned consultancy that helps companies adapt to an ever-evolving marketplace and obtain a competitive advantage by improving strategic execution and strengthening resources and capabilities.

For 20-years, Tim worked for the American Heart Association’s (AHA) CPR & First Aid division where he held a multiple leadership positions, including: National Director of Sales and the National Director of Operations and Quality where he led 3.2K contracted business partners and over 400K instructors across the US.

Tim served in the United States Naval Reserves as a combat medic with the US Marine Corps and was honorably discharged as a First Class Petty Officer. His early career was as a municipal fire/EMS Lieutenant and training officer, EMS Instructor-Coordinator leading a variety of training programs for fire and EMS agencies, as well as healthcare providers and corporations throughout the State of Rhode Island.

Pamela Dodson, RN, BSN

Resurgent Biomedical Consulting team and Via Heart Project

Pam Dodson retired from the Contra Costa County EMS Agency in California where she developed and coordinated programs for nearly 30 years.
During her time at CCC EMS, determined to increase the sudden cardiac arrest survival rate, Pam, implemented the County’s Public Safety AED Program, Public Access AED Program and the Contra Costa County HeartSafe Community Program. Pam coordinated the System of Care for Cardiac Arrest.

With a passion for changing the culture, Pam’s goal is to make it “normal” to step up and do CPR when someone collapses in cardiac arrest.

Pam graduated from California State University, Los Angeles with a BS in Nursing and a specialty in Critical Care. She worked as an RN in critical care units, emergency medicine and air medical prior to EMS. Pam is a BLS and ACLS instructor.

She currently works with the Resurgent Biomedical Consulting team and Via Heart Project.

Pam lives in Benicia, California. She cherishes every moment she has with her two grown children, Christopher and Kelsey and in her spare time Pam enjoys community service, flower arranging, reading, anything outdoors and is always ready to throw a party.

Brandon Oto, PA-C, NREMT

Critical Care PA at UConn Health in Farmington, Connecticut

Brandon Oto, PA-C, NREMT is a critical care PA at UConn Health in Farmington, Connecticut. He completed residency training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and then held a staff ICU position in the University of Maryland system. Prior to that, he was a field EMT in the Massachusetts area. He has an interest in cardiac arrest and has worked with the HEARTSafe program for nearly a decade.

Bryan Platz

Officer of Coon Rapids, Minnesota

Passion, enthusiasm and people skills have helped Officer Bryan Platz transform the community of Coon Rapids, Minnesota into a Heart Safe Community. The success of the Coon Rapids program has ignited a firestorm of interest from other communities in creating programs of their own, not only in Minnesota, but around the world. The concept of the program: train the public in hands-only CPR and AED use so they can step in to “BE the Help” rather than wait for the help to arrive. So far over 30,000 community members have been trained in CPR and AED use and the community has already had several “saves.”
Officer Platz helped to designate the first military base in the nation as “Heart Safe” as well as two schools in Minnesota. He also worked to pass the AED Announcement Law.
Officer Platz has worked for the Coon Rapids Police Department for over 20 years. He is married and has two sons. He considers himself an all-around nice guy, good police officer and mediocre hockey player. If you meet him, he won’t let you leave the room until you know how to do hands-only CPR.

Monica Kleinman, MD

Pediatric Intensivist at Boston Children’s Hospital, Medical Director of the Medical-Surgical ICU and Critical Care Transport Team

Dr. Kleinman is a pediatric intensivist at Boston Children’s Hospital and serves as the Medical Director of the Medical-Surgical ICU and Critical Care Transport Team. She is responsible for the hospital’s resuscitation program and Training Center, including the system of care to prevent in-patient cardiac arrest.

Dr. Kleinman has volunteered for the American Heart Association at the national level for the past 20 years, including as Chair of the Pediatric Resuscitation Subcommittee and the Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee. She is a member of the ILCOR Pediatric Task Force and has served on the writing groups for both AHA Guidelines and the ILCOR Consensus on Science with Treatment Recommendations (CoSTR). She is the current vice chair of the AHA’s Get With the Guidelines Pediatric Research Task Force.

Dr. Kleinman’s interests focus on the prevention of in-hospital pediatric cardiac arrest through the use of early warning scores, rapid response teams and physiologic monitoring. She has lectured on these topics nationally and internationally, and has taught AHA PALS and PEARS courses in Taiwan, Tanzania, and Italy among others.

David Hiltz

Program Director, HEARTSafe Communities and Director of Quality at Code One Training Solutions, LLC

David Hiltz is Director of Innovation and Customer Experience at Code One Training Solutions, LLC. In this position, he works to ensure responders are ready, willing and able to act when faced with a medical emergency. David is committed to helping organizations improve their systems of care for cardiac arrest. David has an extensive background in cardiac arrest response through his work at Code One and nearly two decades with the American Heart Association where he was responsible for education, implementation, strategy development, and helping responders achieve improved outcomes.

In addition to his work at Code One, David is an active volunteer with several organizations including the American College of Cardiology and the Citizen CPR Foundation where he serves as the Director for their HEARTSafe Community initiative.

Traci Jolly

Instructor, EMT & AHA BLS Classes
Tahoka, TX

In her free time, Traci also serves as assistant director and co-instructor for all EMT and AHA BLS classes in the North Texas area.

John Freese, MD

EMS Medical Director, Emergency Department Assistant Director and Stroke Medical Director at Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NH

Dr. Freese has nearly 30 years of experience in EMS and emergency medicine and presently serves as the EMS Medical Director, Emergency Department Assistant Director and Stroke Medical Director at Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NH. In addition, he serves on the New Hampshire Bureau of EMS’s Medical Control Board and is that board’s representative to the New Hampshire Bureau of EMS’s Coordinating Board.

His work in the resuscitation realm began in 1993, shortly after he became an EMT, when he became an AHA instructor for BLS and later ACLS and PALS when he became a paramedic in 1995. He is a 1996 graduate of DePauw University with a bachelor’s degree in molecular genetics, completed medical school at Southern Illinois University in 2000, and then had the privilege of completing his residency at Indiana University in 2003, working as a paramedic and EMS educator throughout his college and graduate studies. In 2004, he completed the EMS Fellowship with the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) and was then asked to stay on as a medical director. Eventually promoted to Chief Medical Director, he spent his 10 years with the FDNY working on cardiac arrest survival initiatives including serving as the principal investigator for the SmartCPR Trial (an international randomized controlled trial assessing the ability of AED algorithms to improve survival by varying the timing of defibrillation based upon ventricular fibrillation waveform properties) and NYC Project Hypothermia (a citywide initiative to ensure the use of targeted temperature management for all admitted out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients and to assess the impact of intra-arrest cooling on cardiac arrest outcomes).

John Pliakas, NP, NRP

Chief of Cumberland EMS

John Pliakas is currently the Chief of Cumberland EMS in Cumberland, RI. John has extensive experience in all aspects of emergency and critical care.

Mark Link, MD

Professor of Medicine and the Director of Cardiac Electrophysiology in the UT Southwestern Department of Internal Medicine’s Division of Cardiology.

He joined the staff there in 1997 and became a full Professor in 2008. He served as Director of Evaluation of Athletes and Co-Director of the university’s Cardiac Electrophysiology Laboratory, Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center, and Heart Station.

He has lectured or presented at conferences, grand rounds, or symposia of organizations including the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, Heart Rhythm Society, American Society of Medicine and Sports, Heart Failure Society of America, New England Regional Trauma Conference, and North American Trainers Association.

Deon Vigilance, MD, MBA

Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Mercy Health System, Trinity Health in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Vigilance’s commitment to improving the health and well-being in under-resourced populations is evident through his work with AHA’s Multicultural Leadership Committee, as well as engagement in the AHA’s Social Determinants of Health Conference. Dr. Vigilance’s efforts in advocacy and community impact led to him being awarded the Great Rivers Affiliate 2019 Multicultural Leadership Award.

Char Poranganel

Global Emergency Services Outreach Leader, General Motors OnStar

With over 15 years of training and emergency operations experience, Char Poranganel is the Global Emergency Services Outreach Leader at General Motors OnStar supporting Canada and Global Regions in educating the emergency services community on OnStar Emergency technologies / services offered to subscribers. Prior to this role, Char was responsible for managing Emergency call operations for in-vehicle emergencies including Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) call handling and customer satisfaction for OnStar members across North America. Char also implemented Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) programs within the OnStar emergency operations center supporting advisors after handling difficult calls.

Char holds her B.A in Education from Brock University, Certificate in Adult Teaching & Training, is certified by the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation (ICISF) in Peer & Group Interventions, certified in ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) and MANERS Psychological First Aid Training.

Tony Walker, ASM

Chief Executive Officer

Ambulance Victoria

Tony Walker ASM is Chief Executive Officer of Ambulance Victoria. He is a Registered Paramedic with over three decades experience working in a range of senior clinical, operational and leadership roles within the ambulance sector. Over past six years Tony has led significant transformation at Ambulance Victoria to improve the health and wellbeing of their workforce and the response they provide to the community. He holds an adjunct appointment as Associate Professor in the College of Health and Biomedicine at Victoria University and is a Fellow of the Australian College of Paramedicine, a Board Director of the Emergency Services Foundation, the Australasian Council of Ambulance Authorities and the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and an Executive member of the Global Resuscitation Alliance. Tony is a recipient of the Ambulance Service Medal (ASM) for his contribution to the development of ambulance services at a state and national level and has also been awarded the Australian Resuscitation Council Medal for his significant contributions to improving resuscitation practice and outcomes. Tony was also a finalist for the Australian Mental Health Prize in 2019 in recognition of his work in improving paramedic mental health and wellbeing.

John Freese, MD

EMS Medical Director, Emergency Department Assistant Director and Stroke Medical Director at Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NH

Jim Suozzi, DO, NRP, FACEP

Novel Strategies For Citizen CPR and AED Training and Awareness

HEARTSafe Community Champions Webinar – Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Jim Suozzi, D.O. NRP, FACEP has been involved in EMS for over 30 years. He is currently the Associate Medical Director of Emergency Medicine and the EMS Medical Director at Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth Hitchcock – Keene, NH. Dr. Suozzi serves as the Medical Director for New Hampshire e911 and Vermont EMS District 13 Medical Advisor. He is board certified in Emergency Medicine and Emergency Medical Services.

Justin Sempsrott, MD

Non-profit Lifeguards Without Borders, Co-founder of International Drowning Researchers’ Alliance and Emergency Medicine Physician

Justin is an EMS/Emergency Medicine Physician in North Carolina. For 20 years, he’s served as an ocean lifeguard with the American Red Cross Volunteer Lifesaving Corps.

In 2006, he co-founded Lifeguards Without Borders. Certified in swift water, dive and ocean rescue, he has provided: consultation, lifeguard training, and physician and nurse education around the globe in the following locations: USA, Peru, Portugal, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Australia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Canada, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Uganda, Ireland, Brazil and Germany. Justin also has an interest in wilderness medicine and mass gathering medicine and serves as the Associate Medical Director for the Burning Man Medical Operation and Medical Director for A Night in the Country.

In the last 5 years, he has lectured on drowning resuscitation to over 10,000 prehospital providers, USAF Pararescuemen, Navy SEAL’s, and other US/NATO special operations medics and recently spearheaded a new statewide drowning protocol for all credentialed EMS providers in North Carolina. Justin serves Global Outreach Doctors’ mission to promote public health measures to reduce accidental deaths from preventable causes (such as drownings) and to increase the skills of disaster response teams who are deployed to disasters which involve typhoons/hurricanes and floods. Justin’s skills are important because we recognize that many major disasters in the past 5 years have been water-related.

Dr. Stafford Cohen, MD

Paul Zoll, MD – A Pioneering Champion for Patients

HEARTSafe Community Champions Webinar – Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Dr. Stafford I. Cohen is a retired cardiologist in Boston, Massachusetts and was affiliated with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center where he worked with Dr. Paul Zoll. He received his medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine and has numerous academic and clinical appointments. He is a prolific writer and exceptionally talented storyteller.

Eddy Afram

Eddy Afram
Mont Saint Hilaire, Quebec

Kaitlyn Gilk

Kaitlyn Gilk is a current senior at Paynesville, MN. She plays varsity volleyball, varsity softball, and coaches Junior Olympic Volleyball. Kaitlyn is also involved in her school’s chapter of the National Honor Society. She has been in Girl Scouts for 11 years. In 2019 she started her Girl Scout Gold Award and raised $22,000 to put AEDs in Outdoor Cabinets around her town. She also hosted CPR/AED training events for community members, as well as created educational materials for middle schoolers in her school. After she accomplished her Gold Award she started working for a nonprofit called Advocates For Health to continue to place AEDs in outdoor cabinets. In the fall of 2022, she will be attending the University of Wisconsin River Falls for a degree in Business Administration- Marketing Professional Sales.

Matt Cox

Matt Cox was raised on the plains of Oklahoma in a small community just outside of Bartlesville, home of Phillips 66 Petroleum founder Frank Phillips. After graduating high school, he would go on to graduate EMT-Basic and become nationally registered in 2003. Matt served in rural departments in need of personnel for rural communities (Hominy EMS and Bartlesville EMS) before beginning his career at EMSA in January 2005. As his career progressed, he was selected for the EMSA in house Paramedic program, shortly thereafter graduating and becoming a nationally registered Paramedic in October 2007. He then promoted to several positions within EMSA, from Field Training Officer, Assistant Division Chief, Quality Assurance Coordinator, to finally the Quality Assurance Lead for Metropolitan Tulsa and Oklahoma City. It was during his tenure as the Quality Assurance Lead that the Chief Medical Officer for Metropolitan Tulsa and Oklahoma City made the decision to pursue improved cardiac arrest survival, and Matt had the honor to be on the forefront of that movement in the culture of resuscitation. Changes in the resuscitation culture required champions from multiple agencies within the response area, with Matt being provided the opportunity to be one of those champions. He then accepted the position of Division Chief of Critical Care Analytics within the Office of the Medical Director, serving as the primary champion for the resuscitation culture. In this position, he would would serve patients and front line credentialed personnel by providing feedback directly to field personnel by Resuscitation Annotations. These annotations lead the way for field personnel to truly understand their performance to “celebrate the red” and “celebrate the green”. It was only through understanding our current state could we move forward to our future state of improved neurologic outcomes, with Matt providing that intel. Matt also grew the resuscitation culture in Metropolitan Tulsa and Oklahoma City by expanding focus on all resuscitations aside from the Utstein template that had been the sole focus before. Resuscitation Culture should not just be limited to only 5% of our resuscitations; but should encompass each and every effort for our patients to return to their lives after such an event. By creating the Annual Resuscitation Report, Matt provided the ability for all to celebrate where we have succeeded, and focus on where we can begin. These efforts that Matt had undertaken would not be possible if not for multiple individuals along the way: To my wife Stephanie- You have been the perfect match for my drive. 15 years ago I gained enough courage to ask you on a date- a moment of courage that changed my life in ways I could have never dreamed. The highs, the lows, and you were there for all of them. Lifting me up when I needed you, and pushing me when I didn’t think I could get there. This award is a much for you and it is for me. I love you, and thank you for being the rock that I and our 3 children need! My Parents Mike and Denise Cox- Thank you for raising me to believe in myself, and always pushing me to excel. Potential is fostered and grown through hard work and dedication, and you both were great examples and parents. Who would have ever thought a boy from small town Oklahoma could have the opportunity to help drive change in an industry or a culture? You did, and that is why I am here. My late Grandmother, Alpha Ross- All those years ago, you started a family that lead to my ability to help those in need. Times were tough, but you never failed us, no matter the circumstances. While you may have felt like your abilities were limited to Caney, Kansas your love and devotion to your family are felt well outside of your hometown. Every thought I have in regards to what is best for a patient begins with “How would something like this would have effected Grandma Alpha?”. Some may see this as a self serving thought, however I firmly believe that if I treat someone with the reverence I have for you, then I can never go wrong. My OMD Teammates- You guys are a tough group to keep up with. Always pushing the limits, with the patient always at the center of every decision. It is true what is said that you are the company you keep, and my peers are above and beyond. Dr. Goodloe, Dr. Knoles, Chief David Howerton, and Chief Duffy McAnallen thank you for allowing me to have the opportunity to stand next to you fighting the good fight, and challenging me every day! To all of the EMTS, Paramedics, Fire Fighters, LEOs, Nurses, and Physicians- Keep pushing forward. The last 2 years have been tough on all of us. In seasons like these, we must continue to push forward. Without you- all of you- these changes would not be possible. While others may doubt, you never do. And you continue to persevere. Bravery is not the absence of fear, but the choice to overcome it. To choose action over inaction. Be the champion your department, peers, and citizens need. If a small town Oklahoma boy can do it, so can you.

Nichole Pereira

Nichole Pereira is a Clinical Nurse Specialist in the pediatric intensive care unit at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton, Canada. She completed her Bachelor of Nursing Degree and Masters in Nursing Leadership at the University of Alberta, and is now a PhD Health Quality Student at Queen’s University in Kingston, ON. She is a frontline specialist in clinical quality improvement and patient safety. She specializes in fostering safe, healthy, and productive work environments in healthcare.

Shobi Mathew

Shobi Mathew is a first-year medical student at Wayne State University School of Medicine (WSUSOM) in Detroit, Michigan. Shobi has demonstrated a keen interest in improving cardiac arrest survival rates, especially in Detroit. Prior to medical school, Shobi was assigned with the duty to manage the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES) database in Detroit and local hospitals. Shobi excelled while working on the CARES project. He, alongside Detroit Receiving Hospital, received the CARES Excellence Award which recognized his dedication towards improving patient care and saving lives. Since coordinating cardiac arrest data in Detroit, Shobi has published several abstracts and articles. Most recently, he became the first author for an article titled “Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest care in Detroit” in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine. Shobi’s passion and investment in improving cardiac arrest survival extends beyond the hospital and research. He served as a local volunteer instructor for CPR and AED trainings in the Detroit community. He recently received the American Heart Association Student Scholarship in Cardiovascular Disease to study cardiac arrest outcomes in Detroit and became the co-president of First Aid First, an organization at WSUSOM dedicated to providing citizens with life-saving training. In doing so, Shobi plans to continue cardiac arrest research and community engagement efforts throughout medical school.

Salvatore Aiello

Salvatore Aiello is an MD/PhD candidate at the Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University. He has been with Dr. Raúl J. Gazmuri and the Resuscitation Institute since 2016. His work has focused on Ventricular Fibrillation Waveform Analysis to guide hemodynamic interventions and the timing of electric shock delivery. Ultimately, his career goal is to complete residency and fellowship as a physician-scientist and start his own large animal translational research lab. Through his combined MD/PhD training and other ventures he continues to see the importance of the research cycle between the bedside and the benchtop and disseminating these findings to the public. Outside of research, Salvatore interned with the National Association of Science writers and has worked with doctors and art therapists to implement medical humanities programs on campus to better integrate the arts into the education of healthcare professionals.

Nancy Glober

Dr. Glober is an Emergency Medicine physician and a Deputy Medical Director for Indianapolis EMS. She works with Indianapolis EMS and Fire Departments to review and improve the response to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Indianapolis EMS and Fire Departments have collaborated on simulations, train-the-trainer sessions, monthly review of data, an initiative to improve early recognition of cardiac arrest, and are planning an upcoming CPR/resuscitation competition.

Tony Renta

Since early 2008, Tony has provided education in the Central Florida area to a variety of healthcare professionals. His educational background stems from the nearly 15 years spent in the fire service as a pre-hospital paramedic. Tony was awarded the 2013 state of Florida Paramedic Instructor of the year by the Florida Association of EMS educators. Shortly after in 2013, On-Call Training Solutions was created and to date has provided instruction of over 5000 AHA courses to more than 20000 healthcare professionals. During his tenure as an American Heart Association instructor, Tony obtained and remains a Senior Training Center Faculty member and instructor trainer. In 2016, On-Call Training Solutions obtained training center credentials as the only public Advanced Stroke Life Support (ASLS) certification company in Central Florida. With a passion for education and company people can trust, On-Call Training Solutions has become a paramount location to obtain resuscitation courses. With more than 20 current educational sites, Tony and his team will continue to expand in 2022 with hopes of increasing quality education in resuscitation beyond the southeast region of the USA.

Michael Mancera

Dr. Michael Mancera is a physician within the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public health. He serves as a faculty physician and is board certified in Emergency Medicine and Emergency Medical Services (EMS). He serves as an EMS medical director for several EMS agencies including FitchRona EMS and Middleton EMS within Dane County Wisconsin. Dr. Mancera also provides oversight of the prehospital Quality Assurance program at the University of Wisconsin. He has remained dedicated to advancing prehospital care, including cardiac arrest care, through education and quality assurance efforts.

Christopher Sun

hristopher Sun is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management and Massachusetts General Hospital. His research interests lie at the intersection of optimization, artificial intelligence, public health, and health equity. His research in resuscitation sciences revolves around developing optimization, machine learning, and simulation models to improve the understanding of cardiac arrest risk and inform cardiac arrest preparedness and response strategies. Highlights of his research include quantifying the harms of limited temporal automated external defibrillator (AED) accessibility on bystander AED use, developing AED placement optimization models that maximize AED accessibility in relation to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest incidence, and demonstrating the generalizability of AED placement optimization models across different study settings. He has conducted much of his research in collaboration with multiple health institutes including Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, USA), Boston Emergency Medical Services (Boston, USA), St. Michael’s Hospital (Toronto, Canada), and Gentofte Hospital (Copenhagen, Denmark). He was a recipient of a CIHR Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, an American Heart Association Young Investigator Award, and a CIHR Postdoctoral Fellowship.

John Erbayri, MS, NRP, CHSE

John Erbayri is the Manager for the Center for Life Support Education & Outreach at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Training Center Coordinator for their American Heart Association Training Center. He has been teaching AHA curriculum for over 15 years when he started as an Emergency Medical Technician for his local ambulance service. Mr. Erbayri is a Nationally Registered Paramedic, Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator and along with his responsibilities at CHOP he is an active 911 Paramedic for Marple Township Ambulance Corps in Delaware County, PA. As an active EMS Provider he has witnessed first-hand the importance of the chain of survival and the focus that is needed on early recognition of cardiac arrest and bystander CPR. John is truly passionate about community CPR projects and with his team coordinates numerous “sidewalk CPR” training events including the yearly sidewalk CPR day held the first Saturday in June every year.

Tommaso Scquizzato

Tommaso Scquizzato is a researcher and a medical student in Milan, Italy. He does research in the Center for Intensive Care and Anesthesiology of San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, Italy. His areas of interest are resuscitation, cardiac arrest, emergency medicine, and medical technology. He is author of 30 scientific publications in these fields. He mainly published about out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, in particular how to improve survival by alerting citizens through mobile apps, and the use of technology in emergency and critical care medicine. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he investigated the effect of the pandemic on out-of-hospital cardiac arrests and on the use of ambulance and emergency department services. He is the Social Media Editor of the Journal Resuscitation, member of the ILCOR Social Media Working Group, and ERC Social Media Team. Tommaso is active on social media, you can find him on Twitter (@tscquizzato), Facebook, Instagram (@resuslab), and LinkedIn.

Katie Charbonneau

Katie Charbonneau EMT, Hinesburg Fire Department Cardiac Arrest Survivor Being born and raised in a Fire Department family, Katie Charbonneau was no stranger to emergencies. On Halloween 2018, Katie became the emergency when she suffered from Sudden Cardiac Arrest, while sleeping in her home. Thankfully her Husband Lucas woke up and using his skills as an EMT, and was able to save her, along with 19 other “family” members from their department. While the cause of her Cardiac Arrest is still unknown, her purpose has become very clear now. In February 2019, Katie held her first “Katie’s Community CPR” Hands Only CPR training. Since then, she has taught over 350 people hands only CPR in her small community. Katie has also become a AHA BLS Instructor as well, to be able to teach certification classes. Since then, she has personally fundraised money and purchased 6 AED’s that are now currently used for Public Access Defibrillators in the town of Hinesburg, VT. Recently, she was able to purchase two SaveStation Wall Mount units in order to be able to place more AEDs in her town and have them be protected by the elements. In early 2020, Katie decided it was time to make the town of Hinesburg a designated HeartSafe Community. Through her hard work and time, she helps to maintain this status for Hinesburg, offering CPR/AED classes and educating the public on Cardiac Arrest and Heart Health. Katie also had the honor of being the Vermont AHA Go Red For Women Luncheon Survivor Speaker. Unfortunately due to Covid 19, the luncheon became a virtual event, but Katie enjoyed having the opportunity to share her story with thousands of people. In Spring 2021, Katie achieved her EMT license and actively runs First Response with the Hinesburg Fire Department, where she also coordinates CPR classes. She recently began working as a Medical Assistant for Outpatient Cardiology at the University of Vermont Medical Center.

Naima Dellawar

As a 3 time cardiac arrest survivor, Naima strives to advocate for the cardiac community by being the founder of the @cardiacarrestawareness platform on Instagram. By posting valuable CPR, AED, and cardiac arrest information, it has allowed Naima to be a finalist for a WEGO Health Award, have her information reach countless people, and advocate her story while sharing life saving information.

Jasmine Wylie

Jasmine Wylie is a survivor of SCA since 2009 due to congenital Long QT Syndrome. Beyond her lived experience as a survivor, she is a SCAA board member, an alumni of the Stanford Medicine X ePatient program, and an administrator of an online community for survivors of SCA. She has also worked with organizations such as SADS Foundation and Heartfelt Cardiac Projects. Her area of expertise in this space is facilitating peer support through management of online patient communities. Jasmine is passionate about forming partnerships with the medical and research community in order to improve resources for those who have survived or live with conditions that increase risk of SCA.

Susan Burnett

Ms. Burnett has been a first responder for 20 years in urban, suburban, rural, and flight settings. Her work as a front-line paramedic inspired her to attend graduate school to create positive changes in the healthcare system. She has a master’s degree in community health and is a doctoral candidate studying health communication. She recently assisted in bringing the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES) to New York as a statewide program and serves as its coordinator. In addition to her graduate studies and CARES program coordination, she is an emergency medicine researcher and an educator for healthcare professionals and members of the public. She teaches American Heart Association courses and, since creating a Stop the Bleed program in 2018, has personally trained more than 2,000 people to save lives by controlling hemorrhage. Ms. Burnett’s research areas include cardiac arrest, health education, experiential learning, instructor communication, EMS recognition and response to sexual violence and social determinants of health, and EMS professionals’ work/life interrelationships.

Daniel Moran

Daniel Moran has been serving Davie Fire Rescue for over 17 years and is currently the EMS Division Battalion Chief. In addition to his assignment in the EMS Division, he is also the fire department’s Health and Safety Chair assisting with multiple projects to improve the physical and mental health of the firefighters. He holds degrees in EMS, Fire Science, and Fire Administration. Daniel utilized multiple communication models during the COVID pandemic to educate his firefighters on best practices to reduce their exposure. He was given the honor of serving as the Program Director since 2017 for the Florida Resuscitation Academy. He oversees the Continuous Quality Improvement program and has a strong desire to improve the care delivered to all patients. He believes this improvement can be accomplished through education, training, and monitoring with constant feedback on the delivery of service. He believes in responding to all cardiac arrests using High-Performance CPR with the Pit Crew method of resuscitation. He is passionate about increasing ROSC and Survival Rates, which has been accomplished through the work with the Resuscitation Academy. He is honored to be included in the 40 under 40 class of 2021 and sends his warmest thanks to the committee for this recognition.

Bethany Keime

Bionic and proud of it, Bethany Keime is using her passion, talents, and personal journey as the Co-Founder and CEO of HeartCharged. Her @heartcharged Instagram account has become the home to the Jolt community. Thousands of people connect and have become their own international support system for cardiac arrest survivors and heart patients. The need for this is ever-expanding as more people live longer after cardiac events. Additionally through HeartCharged, thousands are joining in an awareness plus action campaign determined to create more survivors.

Of particular note is how Bethany has tapped into the power of social media to start redefining beauty to include the heart warrior, with actual life-saving consequences. One of the original objectives of the @heartcharged Instagram account was to show that the heart warrior body, scarred and misformed as it may be, holds a special beauty and power to be celebrated and not ashamed of. Bethany is truly a proud bionic beauty often seen in clothing she’s designed, device out, heels on, flaunting her own brand of “I’m sexy and strong and scarred” attitude. While other 20-somethings go to vacation in the UK, Bethany saved up to travel there to be part of the Behind the Scars project. Her openness to sharing what others might hide has had life-saving consequences. Other young people diagnosed with her condition but hesitant to accept medical interventions such as defibrillator implantation have found her and been inspired.

At the heart of HeartCharged and Bethany’s work is patient-to-patient support. She puts on virtual meet-ups monthly with international attendance. She will also travel hours for a one-on-one conversation. She will stay up all night messaging frantically and stay up all night with a newly-bionic or newly-diagnosed person, answering questions only another patient can understand. She has found so many who have felt so alone in their diagnosis. She is working to end that. Through a grant, she sends goodie bags to other patients assuring them they are part of a community.

Rallying community engagement, Bethany has made AED donations and put on heart screenings. She is a CPR instructor and puts on classes and demonstrations and shares information at community events. She helped pass significant state legislation leading to mandated CPR and AED training for students for which she was recognized on the House floor. She created a school assembly for elementary students which educates them on the steps to take in case of a cardiac emergency, the warning signs of heart conditions, and life with a heart condition and implanted defibrillator. She teaches young people not to fear using an AED. AED donations have been made in conjunction with the assemblies. The audience dance movements and entertaining video included make the presentation both upbeat and memorable.

Bethany has had several articles published and has participated in many podcasts and magazine and tv interviews. She enjoys sharing patient insights with other patients, caregivers, and especially the medical community. She loves creating a vast array of content to share. She is informative and real, informational and affirming.

Bethany’s vast array of work has been recognized with a number of awards. She has been lauded by community and patient advocacy organizations. Her own hometown issued a proclamation and passed a town ordinance requiring AEDs in recreational facilities due to her advocacy.

She recently graduated With Highest Honors with her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts. She is an impacted patient truly making an impact. You should connect with her @heartcharged. You’ll enjoy the journey with this friend.

Hannah Keime

Hannah combines her own uniqueness, creativity, and talent, along with passion and power, to spread awareness to stop preventable deaths from sudden cardiac arrest and give support to fellow heart warriors.

This she does while being a full-time student on an accelerated schedule, working full-time on the business she helps run to pay for school, and being a totally-full-time heart patient with an advanced condition that no one could blame for just wanting to curl up and take a nap.

Hannah was fortuitously diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy right after starting high school. The pediatric cardiologist who screened her wondered how she was alive considering the severity of her condition. As soon as her life was saved, she set out on a crusade to try and save others. She gave assemblies at school and in the community, worked on legislation, and spoke to individuals, begging people to have young people screened.

Meanwhile, Hannah’s condition worsened, and she soon needed an implanted defibrillator. Only months later, that device saved her from the sudden cardiac arrest that struck in her sleep. It also saved her another time while she was performing on her school stage. As Hannah’s condition threw her more challenges, she responded with more determination.

In 2019, she began HeartCharged with her sister who shares her diagnosis. As they lived through so much so young, they had each other. They wanted others to have someone who understood as well. This desire is timely as united efforts mean more survivors who now need support. Where do they find community? Where do they, especially the young people, find others like themselves to relate to? Where do they find someone bold enough to start a conversation about needing to down a dozen pills a day at age 20? Where do they find someone real enough to relive heartbreaking events? Where do they find someone who knows what it’s like to know you just didn’t die in your sleep? Where do they find out they are not alone? They can definitely find all that and more at HeartCharged where Hannah shows her wit, her wisdom, her wigs, her wardrobe, her scars, her strength, her pain, her tears, and always her gratitude. She is the open and honest friend we all need.

Hannah loves connecting with people, especially through the HeartCharged virtual meet-ups. She enjoys doing podcasts, interviews, speaking to groups, and listening. She loves creating new, meaningful, entertaining, and relatable content for a broad audience. She likes being in front of and behind the camera, acting, filming, editing. She loves giving out goodie bags to other heart patients. Hannah is currently working on some exciting collaborations and projects. Contact her to join in.

Ryan Morgan

Ryan Morgan is a pediatric critical care physician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and an Assistant Professor of Anesthesia, Critical Care, and Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He is a member of the CHOP Resuscitation Science Center and conducts NIH-funded research on pediatric cardiac arrest. His clinical and laboratory research focuses on understanding cardiac arrest physiology in order to design personalized strategies for CPR that can improve outcomes. He is particularly interested in how the underlying cause of cardiac arrest should impact the therapies that we should provide during cardiac arrest. Ryan is involved with resuscitation education and quality improvement at the local and national levels. He is currently the Chair of the Pediatric Emphasis Group of the American Heart Association Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he has been a leader in efforts to develop guidelines and educate providers on the safe and effective resuscitation of children with COVID-19.

Emily Lewis

Emily Lewis owns and operates a CPR and first aid training company that focuses on building community, empowering and educating their students, and creating a world where everyone has access to affordable and convenient lifesaving skills. She has also made it her mission to provide public access to Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) within her community and has recently launched a Community AED Scholarship program.

Emily currently serves as the Chairperson for the American Heart Association Midwest Regional ECC Committee and has been involved with several Hands-Only CPR projects including a recent online project for World Restart a Heart Day.

In her free time, Emily enjoys spending time with her husband and 3 kids in Missouri. She coaches her daughter’s soccer team and is active with the local Salvation Army extension.

Jadelyn Villegas

Hi, my name is Jadelyn Villegas and I am currently a senior in high school. I have been teaching Hands-Only CPR and AED use to my school and my community! Thank you for the opportunity of this award and the overwhelming support I’ve gotten from everyone!

Brianna Wolfe

Brianna is currently working as a Clinical Exercise Physiologist and Director of Cardiac Rehabilitation at Georgia Arrhythmia Consultants and Research Institute. She also serves as the Executive Director of the Georgia Arrhythmia Foundation and S.C.A.R.E. (Sudden Cardiac Arrest Research and Education) 5K Race Director. Brianna became a CPR instructor over 15 years ago to teach lifesaving skills to cardiac rehabilitation participants and their families. At the age of 12, she witnessed her youth basketball coach collapse and die of cardiac arrest while at practice. She became motivated to teach CPR and AED use to youth, teaching them a valuable life skill. When she began her role serving as Executive Director of the Georgia Arrhythmia Foundation, she began growing the CPR & AED education program within local schools and universities. One local university partnered with the Georgia Arrhythmia Foundation to teach all their athletics departments staff, coaches and players. This school had a basketball player suffer cardiac arrest while at practice. With the quick action of the team and staff CPR was started and an AED was obtained and used. The young man was saved. We believe bystanders with knowledge and confidence to act can and will save lives!
Brianna received her BS in Clinical Exercise Physiology from University of Tennessee. She maintains the Certified Cardiac Rehabilitation Professional (CCRP) designation from American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation (AACVPR), the Exercise is Medicine (EIM) certification from American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), BLS and ACLS Instructor from American Heart Association (AHA), and she serves on the Membership and Affiliate Relations Committee for AACVPR.

Melissa Lederer

Melissa Lederer MBA BSN-RN has spent her career in Cardiovascular Medicine working in various nursing capacities. Her critical care bedside nursing experience and Six Sigma Black Belt training have been foundational to her career at Nebraska Medicine. Her initial step away from the bedside fortuitously resulted in the grassroots development of various healthcare quality oversight programs for the Nebraska Medicine Heart & Vascular program and has rapidly expanded into oversight of an entire outcomes-based structure for the clinical program.

Melissa ‘s career has been primarily focused on gaining new perspectives and ever-growing appreciation for effective systems-of-care and the importance of aligning goals across the entire continuum. Melissa now serves at the Manager for Quality and Accreditation for the Cardiology Service Line at Nebraska Medicine. From the start of her career at the bedside, she has always had a vested interest in the care of all Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) patient populations. As her role has evolved, her interest in resuscitation has only grown with her experience.

Her recent pursuit to establish a system of care for resuscitation efforts has sparked her interest, innovation and involvement in providing extraordinary care to Cardiac Arrest Patients. As the chair of Nebraska Medicine’s Out-Of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) Committee, Melissa’s energy, enthusiasm, commitment and dedication to this patient population and optimal outcomes is evident in all that she does. Her passion for excellent outcomes spans all of these cardiovascular programs and is evident on a day to day basis.

Aaron Johnson

Aaron Johnson serves as the Treasurer of the Griffith Blue Heart Nonprofit. Through his background of financial management and accounting, he has assisted in writing grant proposals to provide funding to accomplish the nonprofits mission of equipping, educating, and empowering law enforcement agencies with life saving medical equipment and training.

In addition, Aaron has advocated to help pass the CPR in schools bill which was passed in 2016 in the State of Arizona. He also supports local Cardiac Survivor groups such as ACAS.

Furthermore, Aaron is continuing to develop skills in the Cardiac Awareness arena by becoming a certified instructor through Griffith Blue Heart Nonprofit to assist in high quality resuscitation and hemorrhage control courses.

Kacey Kronenfeld

Dr. Kronenfeld is a board-certified EMS and EM physician. She completed her EMS fellowship and EM residency at Indiana University in Indianapolis, but is a Badger at heart, with her undergrad and medical school degrees from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. In her roles as the Medical Director of Prehospital Services for MEP and the SSM Health Wisconsin Regional EMS Medical Director, she focuses on personalized medical direction, EMS training, development of effective performance improvement processes, and integration of prehospital care with healthcare organizations. Her goal is to support EMS providers as medical professionals, while optimizing EMS systems and patient care outcomes which have supported priorities of ensuring foundational skills, improving cardiac arrest and airway management. She also serves on the EMS Physician Advisory Committee for Wisconsin and participates in multiple local, state and national EMS committees. In her free time she enjoys traveling, outdoor activities, and spending time with her husband and three children.

Our cardiac arrest programs are a team effort and I’m very fortunate to be surrounded by the best! Some of the highlights of our efforts in the past couple years:

We developed a program to review and support telecommunicators on provision of telephone assisted CPR for every cardiac arrest and this has resulted in an almost full minute reduction in time from call pick up to bystanders getting compressions started.
Instrumental in effort to put on Dane County’s first Resuscitation Academy, brought in experts from King County, Washington to assist in training over 50 EMS providers across Dane County in high performance CPR. In follow up of this, we have developed standard curriculums to support a train the trainer model of expanding HPCPR training to all of our EMS agencies as well as created a modified CPR renewal course that integrates HPCPR in for our fire and law enforcement partners.
Supported development and implementation of data review of all prehospital cardiac arrests – if you can’t measure something, how do you improve! Even with drops in national Utstein survival rates in 2020 in the midst of the Covid pandemic, Dane County continued to improve and be well above national standards (graphs below).
As medical direction of multiple local EMS agencies, we have focused on hands on, high quality training on best practices for management of cardiac arrest. I feel that education and training are the foundation of outstanding cardiac arrest care, which has led to training EMS providers at a level above that which was covered by their initial training to state and national standards. For example, our basic life support providers have been trained and have demonstrated accurate, manual rhythm recognition for shockable and non-shockable rhythms allowing them to provide rapid, manual defibrillation rather than relying on an AED which takes precious seconds to analyze and charge. We also ensure that each and every cardiac arrest call that the EMS providers respond to is reviewed in a robust quality assurance process, often culminating in a live debrief with the providers who responded to the call for help.

Thomas Jenkins

Tom Jenkins was appointed Fire Chief for the City of Rogers in 2009. In his capacity he is responsible for over 150 career employees in ten locations. Under Tom’s leadership, the Rogers Fire Department has become accredited by the Center for Public Safety Excellence (since 2011), Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services (since 2012) and was awarded an Insurance Service Officer Public Protection Classification of one in 2015. During his time in Rogers, Chief Jenkins has led efforts to improve cardiac arrest survivability through sustainable initiatives throughout the city. Since 2009, the department has seen survival rates increase by over 400%!

Chief Jenkins has served on several state commissions and panels, including the Trauma Advisory Council, Firefighter Benefit Review Panel and the Safe Schools Commission. Chief Jenkins has served as an adjunct professor for Drury University, Northwest Arkansas Community College and Oklahoma State University, teaching topics that range from leadership and administration to fire hydraulics and suppression tactics. In 2015, Chief Jenkins was elected to serve on the Board of Directors for the International Association of Fire Chiefs as the Second Vice President. In 2017, he was elected President and Chairman of the Board for the IAFC at Fire Rescue International in Charlotte, North Carolina. He continues to serve the IAFC as member and chairman of the President’s Council and co-host of the IAFC’s podcast series.

In addition to public service, Tom is recognizable face at many fire and emergency medical conferences where he speaks and presents regularly. Chief Jenkins completed his Master’s in Public Administration from the University of Oklahoma and obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Fire Protection and Safety Engineering Technology from Oklahoma State University. He has completed the Executive Fire Officer Program at the National Fire Academy and is a designated Chief Fire Officer and Chief Emergency Medical Services Officer from the Commission on Public Credentialing. He currently serves on multiple boards and advisory committees, including the: NFPA Standard on Organization and Deployment of Career Fire Departments Standard 1710, International Fire Service Training Association Executive Board, National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and the PulsePoint Foundation.

Comilla Sasson, MD, PhD

Comilla Sasson, MD, PhD, received her M.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Medicine and completed her Emergency Medicine Residency at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. She received a Master of Science in Health and Health Services Research from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a PhD in Health Services Research in 2014 from the Colorado School of Public Health. She continues to work clinically in the Emergency Department in metro Denver and maintains appointments in the Colorado School of Public Health. Dr. Sasson is the Vice President for Science & Innovation for Emergency Cardiovascular Care at the American Heart Association. She is committed to working to decrease health

disparities, and to use a community-based participatory research approach to identify and implement solutions to improve the health and wellbeing of community members. She also

serves as the PACT Council Chair, bringing communities and academics together to work on important health topics. Dr. Sasson also serves as the Special Advisor to the Veterans Health Administration Medical Advisory Panel, and leads the VA’s ED Opioid Safety Initiative with grant funding to implement Substance Use training resources in the 100+ EDs/Urgent Cares in the U.S.

Dr. Sasson spent the last year in 8 states on the frontlines, caring for patients with COVID-19. Through this work, she became interested in indoor air quality, and has founded, CO2 Check. CO2 Check is a new carbon dioxide monitor and training program that is easy to use, economical, and can help businesses, schools and the public in focusing on safe indoor ventilation and airflow as a way to decrease transmission of respiratory-borne viruses. She has authored 90+ publications in peer-reviewed journals, including original work on geographic, racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in healthcare.

Tegan Hampton

HEARTSafe Community Champions Webinar – Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Richard Shok

HEARTSafe Community Champions Webinar – Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Laura Metro

After Laura’s son almost died from a nonfatal drowning accident, she started CPR Party™ (a program of The Clay Foundation 501C3). The mission of CPR Party™ is to provide CPR training and water safety tips to all Americans regardless of financial ability. She is an advocate for drowning prevention through public speaking, being a founding member of Families United To Prevent Drowning and serving on the board of directors for the National Drowning Prevention Alliance (NDPA) for four years. Laura is now the Director of Communications and Marketing for the NDPA.

Laura’s professional background is in public relations and marketing. She specializes in developing strategic marketing plans & products that foster an emotional connection between people and brands. Her life experiences coupled with public relations and marketing provides a unique perspective focused on thoughtful, innovative and cost-effective marketing and public relations practices.

John C. Amato

TREASURER

John C. Amato is President and CEO of WorldPoint, whose mission is to advance healthcare training by providing innovative products and outcome based curriculum to healthcare instructors. WorldPoint is driven by a vision that providing most memorable service to every customer by listening to them, understanding their needs, and delivering solutions promptly, attentively, and completely helps our customers save more lives. In short, WorldPoint strives to be a trusted and reliable advisor to our customers.

John has been working with the American Heart Association (AHA) and their Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC) Division since 1996, helping to grow and strengthen AHA’s critical mission to build healthier lives free of cardiovascular disease and stroke. John has also served on the AHA Metro Chicago Board of Directors from 2005 to 2012 and was Chairman of the Board from 2007 through 2012. At the national level, he served as Co-Chair on the American Heart Association’s Vision for Volunteerism Initiative and the Citizen CPR Foundation Board of Directors, Committee Chair for the 50th Anniversary of CPR and the 2006 Survivor Celebration.

John holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Ed Racht, M.D.

2023 Summit Program Chair

Dr. Ed Racht has been involved in Emergency Medical Services and healthcare systems for more than 30 years. He currently serves as Chair of the Texas EMS, Trauma and Acute Care Foundation, an organization that provides advocacy, strategic planning and healthcare system credentialing in the State of Texas.

Dr. Racht has been Chief Medical Officer for American Medical Response (AMR) since 2010. Prior to this role, he served as the Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Medical Affairs for Piedmont Newman Hospital in metro Atlanta. Dr. Racht was the first full-time Medical Director for the Austin/Travis County Emergency Medical Services System, where he spent 13 years. The System was nationally recognized in the Institue of Medicine’s Report on the state of emergency care for its collaborative approach to challenging healthcare integration issues.

Dr. Racht received his undergraduate and medical degree from Emory University in Atlanta and completed his residency at the Medical College of Virgina.

Dr. Racht is the recipient of numerous awards including being named EMS Medical Director of the Year for the State of Texas, the American Heart Association’s Paul Ledbetter MD Physician Volunteer of the Year Award and was named a “Hero of Emergency Medicine” in 2008 by the American College of Emergency Physicians. In 2015, he was the first recipient of the Joseph P. Ornato Excellence in Clinical Leadership Award, and in 2011 received the Slovis Award for Educational Excellence by the U.S. Metropolitan Municipalities Medical Director Consortium. He is also the third Inductee in the Texas EMS, Trauma and Acute Care Foundation Hall of Fame.

Allyson Perron Drag

Allyson Perron Drag is a graduate of the University of Connecticut with a degree in Political Science. She has used her degree by working on several political campaigns, as well as being a staffer in several legislators’ offices, including Massachusetts former State Representative Jackie Lewis and former Connecticut State Representative Mark Boughton. She continued her policy career working for the Massachusetts Secretary of State, William Galvin. Allyson currently works as the Government Relations Director, Regional Lead for the American Heart/American Stroke Association. Her role is to manage, plan, direct, and implement the advocacy programs to influence local, state, and national public issues related to the American Heart Association mission in Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire. This is achieved by mobilizing volunteer, staff and coalition resources, achieving AHA leadership in developing and responding to cardiovascular public health and organizational issues.

Anna Bichmann

Anna Bichmann graduated MBBS at the University of East Anglia, UK and trained primarily in Anaesthesia, Pre-hospital Emergency Medicine (PHEM), and Motorsport Medicine. She completed the Associate Fellow in Teaching in Higher Education at the University of Nottingham. Within an Honorary Research Contract with East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS), she acts as EMAS Representative in the Bystander CPR analysis within OHCAO Research Group in Warwick. In 2017, Anna relocated to Berlin to work as an anaesthesiologist and critical care doctor. She also lectured in advanced nursing education and acted as an instructor at various simulation centers. In 2018, she completed the Resuscitation Academy Leadership Programme in Seattle, Wash., U.S., and also an Emergency Medicine Fellowship in Maryland. After that, she became the medical director at the Academy of Emergency Medicine in Berlin. Furthermore, Anna holds the AHA ACLS, BLS, and PALS instructor certifications. In 2019, Anna shadowed at the Auckland HEMS Service and in 2020 she completed a fellowship in Singapore. Anna is the current Chair of the Young European Resuscitation Council following being the Young Investigator Representative since 2019. Furthermore, Anna is part of the GRC and young GRC keen to improve cardiac arrest awareness and increase patient survival after cardiac arrest. She has an Honorary Research Contract with Warwick University EPPIC team, led by Prof. Gavin Perkins, and partakes in multiple reviews for ILCOR and ISMH. She is now working for Laerdal as a Medical Specialist in Copenhagen.

Professor Bernd W. Böttiger

Professor Bernd W. Böttiger studied Medicine at the Medical Faculty, University of Heidelberg, Germany. After he was trained as an anesthesiologist at the Enzkreisklinikum and the University of Heidelberg, he started his research career at the Max-Planck-Institute for Neurological Research, Cologne, Germany. During the same time, Professor Böttiger was also involved in medical research at several Universities in the United States. From 2002 until 2007, Professor Böttiger worked as a Chief Senior Physician and Vice Chairman of the Department of Anaesthesiology at the University of Heidelberg. Professor Böttiger is now Professor and Head of the Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, University Hospital of Cologne. From 2009 until 2016, he was a board member of the German Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine (DGAI). Furthermore, he is Chairman of the German Resuscitation Council (GRC) since 2012. He is working for the European Resuscitation Council (ERC) since 2008, initially as Chairman; 2013 — 2020 as Director Science and Research; and since 2020 as Treasurer. Since 2021, he is Federal Medical Advisor and Board Member of the German Red Cross (DRK). Since 2014, Professor Böttiger is a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Since 2015, he is a board member of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine (DIVI) and since 2017, he is elected as a member of the advisory board of the DIVI-foundation. Since 2017 he is elected as a member and since 2021 as Chair of the Scientific Committee “Critical Emergency Medicine” of the European Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care (ESAIC). Furthermore, he is reelected as a member of the “Advanced Life Support” (ALS) task force of the European (ERC), and he is a delegate to the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR). In 2019 Professor Böttiger was elected as International Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA) and in 2022 as International Fellow of the European Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care (FESAIC). Professor Böttiger is specialized in Anaesthesiology, Emergency Medicine and in Intensive Care Medicine, and his research focus is resuscitation, especially bystander CPR, KIDS SAVE LIVES and cerebral reperfusion.

Mark Forgues, MEd, NRP | Executive Director, Medical Resources Group LLC

Mark Forgues has more than 45 years of EMS experience in municipal, hospital-based, volunteer, private, fixed-wing, collegiate and fire-based EMS agencies. He is director of Medical Resources Group, LLC, an education and consulting firm; Senior Instructor at National Medical Education and Training Center, an international EMS training center; and Technical Advisor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Emergency Medical Services.

Richard Price

Richard Price, President of the PulsePoint Foundation and is a member of the board. Price retired as the Fire Chief for the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District on December 31, 2012, after a distinguished thirty-three-year fire service career. Price has a strong technical background and is well known for using technology to shape management processes and encourage civic engagement.

In 2012, Chief Price was named “Citizen of the Year” in his hometown of Danville. Price is the 2012 American Heart Association “Heart of Gold” honoree and a 2013 JEMS “Innovator in EMS”.

Price holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration (MPA) from California State University Hayward. He is a California State Certified Fire Chief and is an internationally certified Chief Fire Officer (CFO). In 2009 Price completed the four-year Executive Fire Officer (EFO) Program at the National Fire Academy in Maryland. Price is a graduate of the Harvard University Senior Executives in State and Local Government Program at the Kennedy School of Government and the Strategic Management of Public Organizations Program at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. In 2011 Price graduated from the Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) Executive Leaders Program at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA.

Rob A. DeLeo, MPA, PhD

Rob A. DeLeo, MPA, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at Bentley University. His research focuses on preparedness policymaking. His most recent book, “Anticipatory Policymaking: When Government Acts to Prevent Problems and Why It Is So Difficult,” examines the dynamics of policy change in anticipation of emergent hazards, like novel diseases and other types of slow-onset events. His work has also appeared in Policy Studies Journal, Politics, Publius and the Natural Hazards Review, as well as various other peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the University of Colorado, Boulder’s Natural Hazards Center. Rob is a founding member of the Risk & Social Policy Working Group, which is an interdisciplinary team of scholars examining the relationship between risk messaging and individual behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sarah Lamb, NRP

Sarah Lamb is the training officer and paramedic with Richmond Rescue, a volunteer-based ambulance service and Heart Safe Community in Vermont. She began as a volunteer EMT in Vermont in 2010 before attending paramedic school at OIT/OHSU in Portland Oregon in 2014. Along the way, she developed a strong passion for training and education surrounding cardiac arrest to help improve survival rates. She helped to role out High Performance CPR to Vermont EMS, starting with Richmond Rescue as a pilot site where they had a dramatic improvement in survival despite their semi-rural location. She has also worked on other EMS initiatives for Vermont, was the first CARES Coordinator for the state and was recognized as the Vermont Paramedic of the year for 2018 and one of the 2019 Citizen CPR 40 Under 40.

Jim Hillcoat

Jim serves as a Captain/EMS Coordinator with the La Crosse Fire Department in Wisconsin and has been with LCFD for 15 and a half years. Jim started his career in Rapid City, SD, and eventually moved back to Wisconsin where he was originally from. Jim became focused on specializing in EMS when he was with the Rapid City Fire Department. He has brought the experience and knowledge gained back to La Crosse and has made it his mission to keep taking the EMS system to the next levels of performance. He is very involved in the La Crosse HEARTSafe program.

Janet Trethewey, EdD, NREMT

Janet Trethewey, EdD, NREMT is the Emergency Cardiovascular Care Program manager at Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services. She began this position in 2015. Her initial responsibilities were assisting in the development, implementation, and assessment of the emergency cardiac system of care. This position has evolved to include other time-sensitive emergencies such as TBI. She works with communities, 911 dispatch centers, law enforcement agencies, EMS agencies, and hospitals developing cohesive, data-informed systems. She provides training in High-Performance CPR, STEMI and stroke recognition, EPIC-TBI protocols and improved patient care to EMS agencies and critical access hospitals. Performance Improvement using data-driven assessments is a key interest for her. Her position allows her the privilege of traveling to every community in the state, working with
amazing first responders and front-line health care workers. Janet also volunteers for a local ambulance service a few times a month to “put her own training into practice”. She recently enrolled in a paramedic program with the goal of licensing in January of 2024. She is active in several professional groups including the American Heart Assn., the HeartRescue Project, the Resuscitation Academy and the Citizen CPR Foundation.

Janet retired after teaching for 25 years at MSU-Northern in Havre, MT. At MSU-Northern, she developed the Health Promotion program and taught courses in health, exercise science and education. She was the first certified athletic trainer to be hired by the College. She continued to be involved in the profession, serving on the Board of Athletic Trainers for Montana for 6 years.

She is married to a firefighter/EMT and their son is a firefighter/EMT. Their grandson has just become a teenager and starts driver’s training this summer!

Fiona Johnson, NRP

Fiona Johnson is the Director of Johnson County Ambulance Service in Iowa City, Iowa. With 26 years in EMS, Fiona has a passion to improve cardiac arrest survival rates in her county by increasing access to 24/7 AEDs and public education on the importance of the chain of survival and bystander intervention.

Tony Walker

Tony Walker ASM is the former Chief Executive Officer of Ambulance Victoria. He is a Registered Paramedic with over thirty-six years of experience working in a range of senior clinical, operational and leadership roles within the ambulance sector.

Prior to stepping down as the CEO, Tony led a significant transformation at Ambulance Victoria to improve the health and wellbeing of their workforce and the response they provide to the community.

Tony holds an adjunct appointment as Professor within the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and HealthSciences at Monash University, Associate Professor in the College of Health and Biomedicine at Victoria University and Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Care at the University of Melbourne. He is a Fellow of the Australian College of Paramedicine, Chair of the Australasian Council of Ambulance Authorities and a non-executive director of the Emergency Services Foundation and the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia.

Tony is a recipient of the Ambulance Service Medal (ASM) for his contribution to the development of ambulance services at a state and national level and has also been awarded the Australian Resuscitation Council Medal for his significant contributions to improving resuscitation practice and outcomes. Tony was also a finalist for the Australian Mental Health Prize in 2019 in recognition of his work in improving paramedic mental health and wellbeing.

Jason Carlyon

Jason Carlyon (pronounced Car lion) has worked for the ambulance service for 26 years and is an advanced paramedic in the UK.

In his primary role for Yorkshire Ambulance Service Jason is currently Community Engagement Manager and has led the Restart a Heart campaign since its inception in Yorkshire in 2014. Since 2014 over 200,000 people have been trained across Yorkshire during Restart a Heart Day. Jason has also worked internationally with Sri Lanka as a founder member of the Restart a Heart campaign there and formed the first international partnership in 2016 which led to World Restart a Heart. Jason has worked to address some of the barriers to learning by creating materials in multiple languages and for people with communication difficulties.

Jason also works for the Resuscitation Council UK project managing the national Restart a Heart campaign.

World Restart a Heart is the global campaign adopted by ILCOR in 2018 that resulted in over 5 million people being trained across the Globe in 2021 on Restart a Heart Day, even more in 2022.

Ryan Pourhassanian

Ryan Pourhassanian is a 16-year veteran with the Chino Valley Fire District (CA). He currently holds the rank of firefighter/paramedic. Ryan has been involved in EMS since 2002. He has served in a variety of different roles throughout his career, such as a Tactical paramedic (Fresno County Sheriff), dive rescue paramedic (American Ambulance-Fresno), and a Hazardous Materials specialist. Ryan voluntarily serves on various committee’s/organizations. He is a former regional faculty (CA & NV) member for the American Heart Association, and is currently a guidelines committee member for the Committee for Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (C-TECC). Ryan is the program director for the Chino Valley Fire Districts cardiac care program, CPR QA/QI program, High performance CPR cadre, Homeland Security committee, and the HeartSafe and BleedSafe Chino Valley community outreach programs.

Konstantin Krychtiuk, MD, PhD

Dr. Krychtiuk is an Associate Professor and Internal Medicine Specialist at the Department of Internal Medicine II at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria where he is enrolled in a Cardiology and Critical Care Fellowship. Currently, he is undertaking a clinical research fellowship at the Duke Clinical Research Institute. His main project there is the RACE-CARS trial, a cluster-randomized trial testing the implementation of community interventions to improve survival for people with cardiac arrest all over North Carolina (PI Dr. Christopher Granger, https://racecarstrial.org). After graduating from high school, Konstantin underwent training to become an EMT, a job that he continued to do part time during medical school. He further became a CPR instructor and instructor within the EMT/paramedic academy of the St. John Ambulance Service in Vienna. After graduating from medical school, he started his medical training in form of a three-part training in Internal Medicine, Cardiology and Critical Care. His passion is his clinical and scientific work at the cardiovascular ICU as well as his function as a board member of the Association of Acute CardioVascular Care. The RACE CARS trial in North Carolina brings him back to the basics, the first 10 minutes of a cardiac arrest, the all-deciding timeframe where we so often fail to implement what we know works and saves a life.

Jim Hempstead

Jim Hempstead
Administrative Battalion Chief- Richland Fire and EMS

With 37 years of experience in both fire and EMS industries, Jim has a passion to serve that is stronger today than any other time in his career. He enjoys developing leaders throughout all levels of his organization from fire fighters to chief officers. His role as a chief officer focuses on the importance of being a servant leader and developing a culture of excellence in the workforce. His current body of work includes growing political equity, integrating our organization into the community, building partnerships, enhancing professional business practices, oversight of our development/training initiatives and evolving our delivery model to produce great community outcomes.

His passion to serve in leadership roles extends beyond the traditional Fire and EMS industry. A majority of his adult life included roles and responsibilities of being a community leader as a city council member, planning commissioner, facilitating community initiatives, and serving on an array of boards/commissions.

Zehra’ Al-Hilali

Zehra’ Al-Hilali is a long-time advocate and promoter of life saving programs and activities whether as a volunteer or during her long professional career spanning over three decades. Between 2011 and 2021 she was the Regional Director of the American Heart Association (AHA) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and during these ten years the AHA programs flourished in MENA.

Before joining the AHA, she worked for more than two decades in management and healthcare education in some of the most prestigious healthcare institutions in Saudi Arabia and UAE. She was instrumental in expanding the Trauma Life Support Programs in the Gulf region during her work as the National Coordinator for the Trauma Chapter affiliated with the American College of Surgeons.

Zehra organized and led the launch of a largely successful World Restart a Heart campaign in 22 Arab Countries in Oct 2022 focusing on lifesaving training of school and university students in addition to people with special needs. Lifesaving training equipment was also provided to under-resourced countries during this campaign.

During her extensive professional career, she built regional and international connections and affiliations with Healthcare Authorities and Regulatory bodies in Middle Eastern and North African countries and a track record of success in growing revenue, margins, and profitability. Mrs. Al-Hilali is a “Strategic Partnership Builder” who inspires people to make a difference. When working with others, she shares best practices and success stories, empowers them to do more, and helps them to build the right mindset and connection to achieve success.

Zehra received several national and international awards and recognition for her work over 3 decades and she is a member in many national and international professional bodies.

Zehra’ Al-Hilali

Zehra received several national and international awards and recognition for her work over 3 decades and she is a member in many national and international professional bodies.

Tegan Hampton, MHA

Tegan Hampton is the Network Manager for the Resuscitation Academy Network. She has seven years of project and program management experience, and is well-versed in quality improvement and change management. Hampton has worked in both hospital and Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) settings, and holds a Masters of Health Administration from the University of Cincinnati.

Donna Miller

Donna Miller is currently the Cook County Commissioner of the 6th District and serves as Vice Chair of Contract Compliance, Workforce Development & Veterans Committees, and Chairman of the Forest Preserve District Contract Compliance Committee. She has a background as a healthcare consultant working with leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Donna has tremendous experience in sales, training and development, and bringing together collaborations for new business with healthcare companies. She has received numerous awards and recognition for her professional accomplishments.

Commissioner Miller’s political involvement includes membership on the League of Women Voters, serving as Board Chair for Planned Parenthood of Illinois, Board Chair of Planned Parenthood Illinois Action Committee, Vice-President of Illinois Democratic Women, and former President of Democratic Women of the South Suburbs. During the 2016 Presidential Election, Donna was part of the Illinois Delegation during the Democratic National Convention serving on the Rules Committee in Philadelphia, PA. Most recently Commissioner Miller received a 2022 National Association of Counties Award for her CPR and AED Awareness and Training campaign promoting heart health. She was recognized by the Global Eye Magazine and Indian American Business Coalition as one of the top 20 Chicagoland Women of Excellence 2022. She is also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated – Lambda Tau Omega Chapter.

Donna is also often asked to speak to students as a mentor and role model and is truly passionate about empowering the youth to realize a significant future. She is married to the Honorable Dr. David E. Miller and has two sons.

News

Press Releases

Past Press Releases

Emergency Medical Services in Copenhagen

Recent research and publications include improved outcome from Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest and implementation and use of public access defibrillation programs.

Freddy was one of the chairs of the Utstein meeting 2015 and 2016 on Best EMS Practice and community programs: A Call-to-Establish-a-Global-Resuscitation-Alliance. He is a founding member and advisory board member of the Global Resuscitation Alliance.

Freddy is also a founding member of the European EMS leadership network and has organized the first European EMS congress in Copenhagen in 2016 and the following in 2017 and 2018.

State and Community Advocacy
American Heart Association (AHA)

University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System

Dr. Vanden Hoek completed his residency training in Emergency Medicine at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center in 1995, where he served as their chief resident. He received his medical degree with honors from the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine in 1991.

Perelman School of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania

Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation

Illinois Heart Rescue
University of Chicago

Clinically, Teri is a Flight Nurse at the University of Chicago, UCAN aeromedical program.

University of Washington
Harborview Medical Center

PulsePoint Foundation

In 2012, Chief Price was named “Citizen of the Year” in his hometown of Danville. Price is the 2012 American Heart Association “Heart of Gold” honoree and a 2013 JEMS “Innovator in EMS”.

Professor of Pediatrics at McGill University
Associate Director of Assessment at Royal College of Physicians

Farhan Bhanji is a Professor of Pediatrics (Critical Care) at McGill University and the Associate Director of Assessment at the Royal College of Physicians of Canada – where he supports the Examinations (and assessment practices) for the 68 Specialties and 126 National Examinations.

Parent Heart Watch
Executive Director

After the sudden death of her seemingly healthy 10-year-old son in 2004 blindsided Martha, she immersed herself in education and training relating to the prevention and treatment of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) in youth.

Martha’s activism over the past 23 years spans to multiple municipal, county, state and national boards advocating on behalf of citizens, particularly youth in education, health and safety.

Martha Lopez-Anderson is originally from the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and moved to Central Florida in 1991. She has been married to her husband, Andy, for 24 years and has a surviving son, Alan, now 33 years old.

Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust

**Event/Disaster Preparedness for the Office of Health System Affairs at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW)
Riggs Family Chair in Emergency Medicine (EM)**

C. Kenneth Wright Professor of Internal Medicine and Professor of Emergency Medicine

Virginia Commonwealth University

American Red Cross
President – Preparedness, Health & Safety Services

Mr. McMaster holds a BS from Manhattan College, a MA from New York University in International Political Science, a MBA from the Stern School at New York University, and completed the PMD program at the Harvard Business School.

American Heart Association (AHA)
Senior Vice President of Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC)

Brian Eigel, Ph.D. is responsible for leading the development of products and services that help people prepare and respond to first aid and cardiac arrest emergencies.

Under Dr. Eigel’s leadership, the AHA developed the 2010 and 2015 AHA Guidelines Update for CPR and Emergency Cardiovascular Care while collaborating with the American Red Cross on the development of the 2010 and 2015 Guidelines Update for First Aid.

Among the important products and services that Dr. Eigel is responsible for advancing is the AHA’s Resuscitation Quality Improvement (RQI) program, a groundbreaking new approach to maintaining competence in CPR.

Dr. Eigel holds a Bachelor of Science degree from The College of William and Mary and earned his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Kentucky.