Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation Thanks Walkers and Other Supporters
Saturday, May 21
was shaping up to be a hot day in Pittsburgh. The forecast called for sunny
skies and a high in the 80’s. But the morning was cool and breezy, just right
for a little stroll around the stadium, as cars piled into the gold lots at PNC
Park.
There was no Pitt Spring practice scheduled that day and the locked-out Steelers were nowhere to be found. This day, the activity was focused outside the stadium as evidenced by the long line of white tents that stretched out like drying bed sheets along the periphery of the Big Ketchup Bottle. This morning belonged to the Highmark Walk for a Healthy Community, a Five K walk that helps nonprofit organizations raise awareness. For the first time, the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation was among those organizations.
Foundation board member George Yamalis says that the Foundation’s participation in the event just makes sense.
“For us, it’s just an inexpensive way to raise awareness.”
He continued to say that most of the overhead for the walk is undertaken by Highmark, so the Foundation has the luxury of putting most of the money raised directly into programs to make everyone aware of the importance of having an automated external defibrillator (AED) available to save a life if someone suffers a cardiac arrest.
Yamalis, who has been involved with the walk in the past, says that he recommended the Five K event to Foundation president and co-founder Mary Newman.
“The walk is always a great effort,” he said in a telephone interview.
Yamalis said that final figures were not in, but an early count shows that nearly 100 participants signed up for the SCAF walk team with close to $10,000 raised. A fine showing for the organization’s first – ever participation in the event, said Yamalis, and a good jumping-off point for next year and beyond.
“In future years,” he said, “we need to make sure we stand out (among all the nonprofits in attendance) and be one of the top-notch organizations. I’m hoping we can get involved every year.”
Yamalis’s incentive to join the SCAF board of directors was a very personal one; the death in 1983 of his father from cardiac arrest at the age of 52. George was 13-years-old at the time. Now he, like many thousands of others, wants people to know that sudden cardiac arrest doesn’t have to mean the end of a life.
-A.J. Caliendo
My Story: 12 Years After I Survived Sudden Death
Like George Yamalis, I had a very personal reason for joining the Foundation’s team at this year’s Highmark Walk for Healthy Community. Today, June 2, is the 12th anniversary of my frightening and eye-opening experience with sudden cardiac death.
I was fortunate on that day in 1999 to be among people who were alert enough to immediately call EMTs to the scene and even luckier that a fire department team was only minutes away with defibrillators that re-started my heart and ultimately saved my life. No AED was available at the scene of my event.
While I held down the fort at the Foundation tent, my wife, Lis, walked with the Foundation team because we believe that more lives can be saved if everyone becomes aware that AEDs are not a conveniences in airports, malls, schools, sports facilities and other public places, they are A Must!
Because an AED was utilized in time, I got to stick around to share my life with a wonderful woman who has supported me and encouraged me to live every day to the fullest; to celebrate the birth of three of my four grandchildren and watch them as they grow, and to share with my family the joy of 12 Christmases, Thanksgivings, (which have much more meaning for me now) New Years and Easters as well as dozens of family birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and reunions.
This day also calls to mind those who were not as fortunate. The father of George Yamalis, whose story is told in the attached article, Wes Leonard, an 18-year-old basketball player from Michigan who’s story was told on ESPN, Charleroi High School (Pittsburgh, PA) principal, Vince Vitori and thousands of others who may be alive today if AEDs and people who are trained to use them, were at the scene.
-A.J. Caliendo
A Note from the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation
Thank you to all those who walked on our team during the Highmark Walk for a Healthy Community and all those who sponsored the team. Special thanks to sponsor ZOLL Medical Corporation and George Yamalis, our top fundraiser! We truly appreciate your support.