AEDs
don’t just belong in gyms or near football fields. Cardiac arrest can happen at
any time and any place, and there’s no reason to not be prepared.
It
was that thought, along with her own personal tragedy, which inspired
University of New Hampshire student and Alpha Xi Delta sister Andrea Karpinski
to fight
for the installation of an AED in her sorority house.
When
Karpinski was just fifteen years old, her mother succumbed to a heart
condition. Within three months, the same condition claimed the life of her
older sister.
As
if that wasn’t enough, Karpinski herself went into cardiac arrest while running
on a treadmill. After being unconscious for nine minutes, she was revived by
paramedics and ultimately had an ICD implanted in her chest to help combat
heart arrhythmias.
It
was at a community outreach dinner with her sorority that she had the
opportunity to share her story with local firefighter Dave Blatchford. When she
told him that she felt that her sorority house should have an AED installed, he
vowed to do whatever he could to help her reach that goal.
It
didn’t take long for Karpinski to get the support of her sorority sisters. For
most of them, hearing her tell her story was all it took.
The
sorority and the fire department put their heads together to come up with ideas
for fundraising, and ultimately settled on selling t-shirts. It wasn’t long
before they had exceeded their fundraising goal.
After
convincing the sorority’s national housing organization that installing the AED
presented no safety risks, Karpinski finally got what she was working for.
Last
Friday, on April 25th, the AED
was installed, and other sororities on campus have already expressed interest
in following suit.
So
kudos to Andrea Kaprinski, who took a personal tragedy and turned it into an
opportunity to save lives.
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