Poll: Should Emergency Heart Devices Be Required on Athletic Fields?

Recently, Patch editors surveyed coaches and athletic trainers from across the Baltimore-D.C. region on whether they kept AEDs--

The results were mixed. Some districts, such as Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, said they kept AEDs at every school event. Other districts, such as Howard and Carroll counties, said they were unable to have the devices on each athletic field.

“It’s not practical,” said Mike Williams, coordinator of athletics for the Howard County Public School System. “You know, it’d be ideal to have a designated AED at every game, but you could have a game in the stadium, a game in the gym, in the field hockey field...”

State regulations say that at a minimum, there must be one AED in each public high school, which needs to be “available” for use at school-sponsored athletic events. The regulations don’t explicitly require the devices at all school-sponsored events.

The movement to put AEDs, which districts said cost about $2,000 each, in schools and on sports fields has advanced in recent years, as incidents of sudden cardiac arrest among teens playing sports makes national headlines.

Most recently, Breanna Sudano a player from the visiting Perry Hall High School girls field hockey team at . She survived with the intervention of CPR, but the school’s four AEDs were at the school, and not on the field at the time of the incident.

David Monroe, medical director of The Children’s Care Center at Howard County General Hospital, said about one in 200,000 children are at risk for sudden cardiac arrest. Incidents are higher during times of exertion, such as sporting events.

AEDs boost survival rates during such events, Monroe said. With each minute without the intervention from an AED, the chances of the person’s survival plunge 10 percent, he said. After 10 minutes, the AED doesn’t do much good, he said.

Weigh in on our poll and in comments: Should AEDs be required at every school-sponsored athletic event?