Norfolk Catholic is prepped for cardiac emergency

Norfolk Catholic School is prepared if someone suffers a cardiac emergency.

Equipped with automated defibrillators and staff training, the school has earned a Heart Safe designation.

Norfolk Catholic collaborated with Children’s Nebraska – through a program called Project ADAM – to receive its Safe Heart status.

Project ADAM ensures schools have automated defibrillator (AED) equipment, response training and advanced emergency preparedness procedures in place in case of a sudden cardiac arrest on campus.

The program makes sure the AEDs are well-maintained, and staff are trained in CPR and using the automated equipment, which delivers an electric shock to revive a heartbeat.

Five new AEDs were placed throughout Norfolk Catholic High School and Elementary School buildings, with others in the adjacent St. Mary Church, Sacred Heart Church in downtown Norfolk and at the school’s track and field complex.

“We are so grateful for this opportunity to provide a safe environment for our students, staff and visitors,” Britney Foltz, Norfolk Catholic’s school nurse, said in a press release.

COURTESY PHOTO

Project ADAM (Automated Defibrillators in Adam’s Memory) was named for Adam Lemel, a 17-year-old from Wisconsin who suffered a sudden and fatal cardiac arrest in 1999 while playing basketball at school. Immediate care and access to an AED could have saved his life.

According to the American Heart Association, more than 350,ooo out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrests occur each year in the United States, and about 10 percent of the sufferers survive.

Since 1999, more than 4,000 schools across the United States have achieved a Heart Safe designation.

READ MORE FROM THE CATHOLIC VOICE: