Project ADAM to Place Heart Defibrillators in Schools

Project ADAM (Automatic Defibrillators in Adam's Memory) is a new program geared toward saving the lives of Wisconsin high school students. The project arose from a series of sudden deaths among high school students in southeastern Wisconsin, including Adam Lemel, a Whitefish Bay High School student, who collapsed and died during a basketball game. Many of these deaths appear to be due to ventricular fibrillation -- chaotic contractions of the heart muscle, leading to cardiac arrest. Project ADAM will help schools purchase automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) and train staff to use them.

"As important as the AED implementation itself, is the educational opportunities that the project will bring," says project director Stuart Berger, MD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin. "For any school that may be interested, we would love to do a presentation in order to explain the issues, the risks, the symptoms to be concerned about as well as the importance of knowing CPR and the potential utility of an AED. The early responses suggest a great deal of interest from parents, teachers and students across the entire state of Wisconsin."

These user-friendly, computerized, portable and inexpensive AEDs have revolutionized cardiopulmonary resuscitation. They are programmed to analyze the heart rhythm and shock it back to normal. The all-important timing of the shock is fully automatic, removing the potential for operator error. Anyone can use an AED with just a few hours of training.

Because each minute saved by applying defibrillation increases the person's chances of survival by 10%, Project ADAM seeks to have an AED person at every high school sporting event in Wisconsin, with basic CPR and AED training required for all coaches and referees. It is also the goal of the project to have every high school student in the state learn CPR prior to graduation.

David Ellis, a Homestead High School student and a friend of Lemel, developed the concept of an AED at Homestead and then partnered with Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. It was at this point that the major educational aspects of the program were added and that the decision was made to take the program to a state-wide level.

The project is being coordinated by Children's Hospital, in conjunction with the American Heart Association, the American Red Cross, Medical College of Wisconsin and the Paramedic Training Center of Milwaukee County. Children's Hospital Foundation is coordinating fundraising.

Letters are being sent to high schools throughout Wisconsin explaining the Program, in order to determine the level of interest across the state. The schools that show interest may request a presentation that explains the issues as well as the potential benefits of purchasing the necessary equipment.

MCW Health News presents up-to-date information on patient care and medical research by the physicians of the Medical College of Wisconsin.