Save a Life!

Supervisor Greg Cox Announces Kickoff of his South County AED Initiative

SAN DIEGO, CA – Nationwide, 5,000-7,000 children and nearly 460,000 adults die every year from cardiac arrest.  For these unfortunate victims, brain death occurs in the first four to six minutes of cardiac arrest and for every minute that passes, the chance of survival is reduced by 7-10%.  Upon learning these grave statistics, Supervisor Greg Cox began working with multiple South County municipalities, schools and hospitals to find a way to help increase survival chances for cardiac arrest victims. 

The result of this labor came to fruition today when Supervisor Cox helped kick-off this initiative by attending an Automated External Defibrillator and CPR training session at Hilltop High School.  The event marked the start of deliveries and training for the South County Automated External Defibrillator (AED) program, which will place at least one AED machine in each of the 109 South County Schools.

The program, spearheaded by Supervisor Cox, is a partnership between the County of San Diego, the cities of Chula Vista, National City, Coronado and Imperial Beach, as well as Councilman Ben Hueso from the City of San Diego and the private sector, through financial backing from Scripps, Sharp and Kaiser Permanente.  All of the South County municipalities joined forces with 6 school districts in the region, including Sweetwater Union, South Bay Union, National, Chula Vista Elementary and San Ysidro. 

“Because schools are often the most frequently used meeting grounds for all types of community events, for both adults and children, they have a definite need for these life saving machines,” stated Supervisor Cox.     

For more information, please contact the office of Supervisor Greg Cox at 619-531-5511 or visit http://www.sdprojectheartbeat.com.