In Washington, the Senate recently passed a bill to fund training programs for CPR and defibrillator use in schools.

It had been advocated for months by Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, who in 2023 suffered cardiac arrest on the field during a game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Called the HEARTS Act for ‘Cardiomyopathy Health Education, Awareness, Research, and Training in Schools,’ the House passed a similar law earlier in autumn, and President Biden, who met with Hamlin in the Oval Office during his advocacy campaign for the House bill, plans to sign it before he leaves office next month.

“Since experiencing cardiac arrest, I’ve been honored to work with partners who understand how important it is to provide CPR education and have access to AEDs to save lives,” Hamlin said, using the official acronym for what is commonly called a defibrillator.

“I’m very grateful to Senator Schumer for his work making his common-sense legislation a priority. My journey has shown us that no one expects cardiac arrest to happen and we all need to be prepared.”

Cardiac arrest is a strange phenomenon in that it is a death sentence, but one which can be readily cured provided someone is nearby who’s been trained in the use of an AED and knows how to perform CPR.

Similar efforts to Hamlin’s advocacy were undertaken in soccer stadiums, rather than classrooms, after that sport witnessed a similar near-catastrophe when Denmark’s star attacking midfielder collapsed on the pitch from cardiac arrest during a game at the European Championships in 2020.

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When the next edition of the tournament came around this past summer in Germany, all stadiums had booths where fans could learn CPR and defibrillator use pro bono. 

The Get Trained, Save Lifes, campaign was a partnership between the EURO Championships and the European Resuscitation Council to raise awareness of sudden cardiac arrest and the importance of bystander CPR.

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By the end of the tournament, 38,000 fans, stadium workers, and team staff had been certified as trained in the lifesaving maneuver.

GNN has also reported on lives being saved with literal hours of CPR, rather than the 20 to 30 seconds typically shown in hospital soap operas.

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