HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — A private school in western Henrico County is the first in Virginia to take part in Project ADAM, a program that gives schools the resources they need to respond to incidents of cardiac arrest.
Dr. John Phillips, a pediatric cardiologist at the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at Virginia Commonwealth University, runs the program in Virginia, which he said is designed for students, teachers and visitors alike.
Dr. Phillips visited the Steward School, a private academy located in the Tuckahoe area of Henrico, to emphasize how critical it is to be prepared for incidents of sudden cardiac arrest. According to Phillips, if someone goes into cardiac arrest outside of a hospital, they have just an 8% change of surviving.
“Within four minutes is the optimal time to save a life,” said Phillips. “And then after, with each minute that passes, the chance [of survival] gets worse.”
The Steward School is the first school in Virginia participate in the program and become “heart safe.” In order to become heart safe, schools must follow a certain set of requirements, ranging from simply having an automated external defibrillator to teaching students and staff to respond to cardiac emergencies — to even having a response team at school.
Rebecca Heck, a nurse at the Steward School who helped implement the program, said the school is so big that it took a year. She said the project has helped the school be prepared for cardiac emergencies in every way.
It empowers faculty and staff to practice these drills and feel like a team,” said Heck. “And so they know exactly what to do when Code AED is spoken over the loudspeaker.”
Phillips said he is working with hundreds of other schools across Virginia to get them heart safe. A bill requiring public schools to develop cardiac emergency response plans is waiting for House approval.
