Cancel One Game

In my community of about a half million residents I am aware of four cardiac arrest events in the past decade where an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) was nearby and no one knew it was there, or how to use it, or both. In all four incidents the patient was an adult participating in sport; two playing soccer, one playing hockey, one refereeing hockey. In all four incidents the patient died.

In all four cases the town had purchased and installed AED's at the facility where the event occurred and had trained staff in CPR and proper AED use. In our town, as in most places I suspect, staff are not always highly visible when adult sport leagues are using the gyms, diamonds, fields and rinks and there is no reason why they should be.

Anger, frustration, blaming, fingerpointing were rampant after each of these tragedies. Family, friends and teammates of the deceased lamenting that someone should have done more. And of course they are right, someone should have done more and that someone was them. If 12 grown men are playing basketball in a school gymnasium at 10:00 pm and one of them collapses, and none of the others know CPR and none of them know that there is an AED in the hallway just outside the gym and no one can find the night custodian (who is legitimately performing his job in another part of the school) and the best anyone can come up with is "Call 911" and their buddy dies without receiveing even one effective chest compression or a single shock from an AED, the responsibilty for the lack of a reasonable resuscitation attempt rests solely with the other 11 men.

After the anger and frustation abates and the lawyers explain why a lawsuit is unwinnable, the guilt and the "if only's" set in and hang around for a long long time. Watching someone you care about die and thinking to yourself  "If only I'd taken that CPR course, maybe I could have made a difference" is a curse I would not wish on any person.

The solution is simple Cancel One Game. If you are actively involved in any adult sport league ask the other athletes in your league if they would be willing to Cancel One Game in 2013/14 and take a CPR/AED course instead. Simply Google "CPR" to find a local training agency and have an instructor come out to your next game night and teach these life saving skills to all of the members of both teams.

If every adult recreational sports league across the country partcipates in the Cancel One Game initiative over the next three years by 2016 there will be a statistically significant increase in survival rates for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in most communities. Consider that the skills learned in a CPR class, including how to recognize and respond to heart attack and stroke, go with you wherever you go, to work, to the mall, to a family get together. Consider too that the number one contributing factor when people do survive cardiac arrest is bystander involvement. Most cardiac arrest survivors benefit from quality CPR and an AED being administered prior to the arrival of professional responders.

In 2013/14 talk to your teammates and agree to Cancel One Game, to learn CPR, how to use an AED and how to recognize Heart Attack and Stroke. When the day comes and you need these skills you will be glad you did.