Defibrillators now in every N.L. school, Heart and Stroke Foundation says

After nearly $1 million and a five-year campaign, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada says every school in Newfoundland and Labrador now has an automated external defibrillator.

Mary Ann Butt, the foundation's senior vice-president in the province, says the push started several years ago to get defibrillators into hockey rinks and community centres, and schools became a priority soon after.

Butt said that's because Newfoundland and Labrador has the highest rates of heart disease and stroke in the country, with children being made particularly vulnerable to a relatively common genetic anomaly called arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, or ARVC.

We're sending our children into schools everyday and we don't have the ability to respond in a cardiac emergency.- Mary Ann Butt

Adults at high risk of a heart attack because of ARVC can have a defibrillator implanted under their skin, butchildren can't.

"It's important for schools because you have to be a certain physiological size to get the implanted device, and without that, you're really at risk if you don't have an AED on the premises," said Butt.

"We're sending our children into schools every day and we don't have the ability to respond in a cardiac emergency and thought it was an important piece of work."

Butt said it's "a huge accomplishment" to equip 274 schools with the defibrillators, something she says are integral pieces of safety equipment in public spaces.

"We have fire extinguishers, smoke alarms, smoke detectors we have a number of different things [in schools]; we should be having this equipment as part of the building code as well," she said.

In addition, the Heart and Stroke Foundation trained staff and helped to teach students hands only CPR at participating schools.

"We had over 1,100 Grade 8 students across the province who had a CPR instructor who went in and taught them how to do CPR," said Sherry Healy, the foundation's resuscitation co-ordinator.

"Then we asked them, go home and teach your mom, your dad, your sister, your brother, your aunt, your uncle, your nan, your pop."

Healy said a defibrillator, in combination with chest compressions, can double a person's chance of survival during a cardiac incident.

More training, more AEDs

Butt said she would like to have even more students trained by making CPR training part of the province's school curriculum.

She also said more lives could be saved by installing more defibrillators.

"We want to encourage anyone else that has a building, an office space anywhere where people gather to put AEDs in place. It could be their lives that could be saved," said Butt.

With more defibrillators in more places, Butt said, it would be possible to mark them in a smartphone app to help bystanders and first responders alike find the life-saving equipment.

And while the Heart and Stroke Foundation said thenew defibrillators in schools haven't had to be used yet, staff and students are now prepared if they ever have to.

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador