MUNISING, Mich. (WLUC) – TV6 is taking a look at the importance of having AEDs in Upper Michigan schools, and the process it takes for districts to get them.
On Monday night, our national investigative team told you how Automated External Defibrillators can mean the difference between life and death when someone’s heart stops beating.
Cardiac arrest is the top cause of death for student-athletes across the country. It is now required in Michigan to have access to AEDs in schools.
“We want to make sure that we are equipped to do what we can,” Nicole Lasak, Munising Middle-High School principal said.
For Lasak, it’s an ever-present risk not only in her hallways, but one that she says can’t have enough support.
“We have one in the middle-high school building, one in the elementary building, one at the football field,” Lasak says. “We also have a portable unit that we can take to different locations, if need be.”
AEDs are life-saving tools that, according to the American Heart Association, save nine out of 10 cardiac arrest victims who are able to get a shock from one within the first minute of collapsing.
Lasak is also the school’s athletic director, a front-row seat, she says, to the need in rural Upper Michigan.
“Response time isn’t always as quick as you may want it to be,” Lasak says. “This can be instant.”
At the school, that need for AEDs became apparent in more ways than one and close to home. Lasak says a man visiting a sporting event at the gym walked out to the parking lot when the worst happened: he suffered a medical event, which needed an AED.
“Jan. 31 of this year at Munising High School, we had a gentleman leave a wrestling match in Munising and he went down in the parking lot,” Alger County Sheriff Todd Brock said.
Brock says what happened next had to happen quickly. A nurse helping with the wrestling meet ran to an AED unit just inside the school.
“Pulseless, no heartbeat, not breathing,” Brock says. “CPR was started right away by bystanders. The school personnel on-duty at the event brought out a defibrillator. He was effectively shocked. He is still happily living with us in the U.P. right now, alive because of that early defibrillation and that early CPR.”
Lasak says it wasn’t always this way in schools like Munising.
While Lasak says her school district has had multiple units for the last several years, with the most recent being a portable unit for away events, getting them wasn’t easy.
“They are expensive and not cheap units,” Lasak says. “There is not necessarily direct funding for them but through grant work, so we’ve written some grants that are there for schools to be able to get them. For example, we got our portable one last year with a grant within six months after filling out the grants.”
A task both Lasak and Sheriff Brock say the school liaison officer also helped with.
“They went out on their own, applied for these grants through the state,” Brock says. “We helped a little bit in the selection of the defibrillators, what would be a good defibrillator to buy and put into the schools. It’s just been a great partnership.”
AEDs can cost anywhere between $1,500 to $2,000 each. Until about four months ago, AEDs were not required to be in every Michigan school. That changed in April 2024.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed the requirement into law, along with two House Bills to reinforce the need.
Sheriff Brock says the legislation combined with what happened in that parking lot serves as an AED testament.
“That’s huge,” Brock says. “When we take a call like that, our 911 dispatcher takes that call and we dispatch our EMS, our paramedic service, and that’s the first thing they’ll ask: ‘Is there a defibrillator on scene? Has CPR been started?’ As they are arriving to that scene and they know that a defib has already been brought to the scene, it brings that percentage of saving that person up greatly.”
Brock says AEDs make it easy for anyone to use them in an emergency.
“They are designed for the layperson, or somebody that is not a paramedic or EMT or police officer firefighter. For the layperson to, when in need, to be able to grab it and go and attach it,” Brock says. “It walks you right through it. It is very user-friendly.”
Ultimately, Lasak says the strengthened requirements go a new distance in protecting not only our kids but those supporting them.
“School funding is always difficult, and schools are always trying to do their best to provide for their students as much as they can,” Lasak says.
Brock says the county emergency manager routinely trains the sheriff’s office staff on how to effectively use AEDs.
Lasak says school staff trained just last week for both CPR and AED use.
She says her school also updates their emergency action plans for all athletic teams through MHSAA, including who is going to go get an AED in an emergency, and having teams practice those three times a season.
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Publish date : 2024-09-24 16:19:00
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