This commentary is by Kristy Bohannon of Alburgh. She has worked in health care for the past six years.
My 14-year-old daughter lost her life to a cardiac arrest at school, and I’m calling on the Vermont Legislature to ensure no other family suffers that loss.
Imagine getting a call from your child’s school that your child is unresponsive. As a parent, phone calls from school usually mean that your kids are getting into trouble or they’re in the nurse’s office with a minor scrape or headache.
Every day feels like it happened just yesterday, but it was April 14, 2022, just after lunch, that I received a life-changing phone call from my daughter’s elementary school. “Something has happened to Adrianna, she was in gym class, just jogging laps for a few minutes and collapsed, she is currently unresponsive and isn’t breathing,” they said.
While some efforts were made at the school to revive her, I remember them telling me that first responders had arrived and were trying to start her heart with CPR, but they couldn’t put her into the ambulance for transport until she was breathing on her own.
The time between hanging up the phone to Adrianna arriving at the hospital where I was employed was the longest moment of my life. The hardest medical consent a parent shall ever have to give is to tell someone they can stop CPR on her 14-year-old daughter after hours of trying to save her. That day will forever be the worst day of our lives not only for all of her family, including her younger brother Caiden, but for everyone in the community who knew her.
Ultimately, my beautiful daughter, Adrianna Lee Bohannon, lost her life tragically to cardiac arrest on April 14, 2022.
I strongly believe Adrianna’s outcome could have been different if all schools had a cardiac emergency response plan. CPR, if performed immediately, can double or triple a person’s chance of survival. I am not sure if CPR was immediate or when the AED was used, but everyone’s effort was at best to keep her alive. I was later informed that only a couple staff members were trained on how to use the AED.
My daughter was one of the 23,000 children who experience cardiac arrest outside of a hospital each year, and she was one of the 90% who did not survive.
The American Heart Association is pushing for legislation requiring all Vermont schools develop a cardiac emergency response plan that is practiced — just like fire drills — to ensure students, faculty and staff are prepared to act in the event of a cardiac emergency. I am joining the American Heart Association in support of bill H.247, which will require all Vermont schools to have these lifesaving plans.
A cardiac emergency response plan can increase survival rates from cardiac arrest by 50% or more by enabling a trained lay responder team to take action.
About 40% of cardiac arrests in children are sports-related. Whether in the classroom or on the playing field, having a plan in place to enable faculty, staff and students to quickly and correctly respond to a cardiac emergency can save lives.
Join me in contacting our state legislators to let them know bill H.247 is a top priority for our families and the entire Vermont community, and to make sure our schools can implement these proven lifesaving plans. It is my hope that all Vermont schools are required to be prepared for a cardiac emergency, so that no family suffers the way mine has.
