The Green Bay Packers are donating $100,000 to put the life-saving device used to help resuscitate Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin in 80 schools and recreational sports facilities in Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
“After watching Damar Hamlin’s shocking cardiac arrest and witnessing the incredible response of the emergency personnel and medical professionals who treated him, we recognized our responsibility to act in our own community,” said the president and Packers CEO Mark Murphy said in a statement Wednesday.
Life-saving automated external defibrillators (AEDs) detect if a person is experiencing an abnormal or fatal heart rhythm. If a person, like Hamlin, is experiencing a fatal heart rhythm, pads are applied to the torso and the AED delivers a shock to the heart. The goal is to get the heart cells, which generate electrical impulses, back to a normal heartbeat. If the heart beats too fast for too long, it will eventually stop beating.
Using an AED machine requires training. Bellin Health, the Packers’ official healthcare partner, will conduct approximately 15 four-hour training sessions to ensure each AED recipient has multiple representatives within their organization who are properly trained in the use of CPR and DEA Bellin team members will also perform annual equipment checks to ensure that the equipment is working properly.
Emergency personnel used an AED and administered CPR to Hamlin on Jan. 2 during a game against the Cincinnati Bengals. He was taken by ambulance to a Cincinnati hospital where he received medical attention in the intensive care unit. Hamlin is now back at the team’s training facility.
About 350,000 people go into cardiac arrest, an electrical heart problem, annually, and half of those people don’t get the help they need until an ambulance arrives, according to Bellin Health. About 10,000 additional Wisconsin residents are hospitalized after a heart attack, caused by a blocked artery, each year, according to the state Department of Health Services.
“We are so grateful to the Green Bay Packers for this incredible donation of equipment that saves lives in the communities we serve,” Bellin Health President Chris Woleske said in a statement. “Access to this equipment combined with education about how to provide help in a cardiac emergency is proven to save lives.”
The Packers and Bellin Health are also working together to expand access to CPR and AED training throughout the region, with plans to offer a large-scale public training opportunity at Lambeau Field in the coming months, as well as training opportunities regional throughout the region.
In addition, the two organizations are working together to spread awareness of hands-only CPR, a form of CPR suitable for members of the public who lack advanced medical training or experience. Hands-only CPR can help save lives by providing initial life-saving efforts until first responders arrive.
