RICHMOND, Va. β Over 150 Virginia schools have been recognized for their cardiac emergency preparedness as of this week a program training non-medical staff in CPR and AED use.
From the time Dr. John Phillips was a child, cardiac health has been top of mind and close to heart.
He was born with a congenital heart defect and had surgery when he was 9, but has done well since.
That personal experience shaped his calling to become a cardiologist, but Phillips says his job goes much further than the halls of the Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU.
"For me to be able to speak to a family and tell them about their disorder, and then to take it one step forward and say, listen, your child is going to spend a significant amount of their childhood on a school campus, so let's make the school safe as well," Phillips said.
Phillips has spent the past several years spearheading Project Adam across Virginia's public schools. The initiative, born from tragedy in 1999, aims to save lives by making sure children and adults know what to do in the event of a sudden cardiac emergency in school settings through education and certification with hands-only CPR and use of an Automated Electronic Defibrillator.
For more than two and a half decades, the program has expanded across the U.S. to 35 states including Virginia, saving more than 300 lives on school campuses under the Project Adam Heart Safe School Designation.
In 2023, just six schools carried the title across the Commonwealth. This week, Phillips says Virginia celebrates a major milestone.
"It's 160 as of today, so 160 schools," Phillips said.
One of those schools is Saint Bridget Catholic School, where nurse Katie Ellington uses her personal connection to drive positive change with the designation.
"I was on a collegiate swim team and a friend of mine who swam and practiced with me every day ... he was out for a run and he collapsed, was in sudden cardiac arrest and unfortunately there was no AED around to save his life," Ellington said.
The program trains non-medical staff to respond to cardiac emergencies.
"And these are not medical people, these are teachers, these are office members," Ellington said. "It's empowering those people who don't have medical backgrounds to respond in an emergency."
That knowledge gives Chesterfield parent Matt Brady peace of mind for his two boys, both born with heart issues.
"I think as a parent, what's better than that? That's really the bottom line and then you back up from there and you go through the plan of how to get there, how to make sure they're OK. And Project Adam is a big part of that," Brady said.
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