September 1, 1999

Community shows its heart with defibrillator drive

Carol South
Herald contributing writer
       In this town, with so many wonderful causes vying for charitable donations, fund-raiser follows fund-raiser asking people to open their hearts and wallets to help out. It is a rare occasion, however, that a fund-raiser is so successful, so quickly that some events are canceled because the goal is in sight.
      For the Second Chance at Life Committee, their 12-week quest to raise funds to equip local police cars, marine boats and some public buildings with defibrillators has met with unprecedented community support. Following in the footsteps of the successful campaign to purchase thermal imaging cameras for local fire fighters, the Second Chance at Life Committee found that people in the Grand Traverse region support life-saving causes.
      More than 61 donations were at least $3,000, the cost of one defibrillator, showing the local residents' concern about and personal knowledge of heart disease, the nation's number one killer.
      "People said that we were not going to have the success we had with the cameras," said Pat LaBelle, coordinator of the Second Chance at Life Committee. "But again, the community rallied around it. We have had people thanking us for the opportunity of giving or giving in memory of a loved one, it is so heartwarming."
      In 12 weeks, the campaign raised $228,000, which will be used to purchase 71 units, including two extras and an extra battery pack. Forty-two defibrillator units are on their way in the first wave of purchasing. Police officers from both the Grand Traverse County Sheriff's Department and the Traverse City Police Department will complete four hours of training to use them. Seven units will also eventually be placed in State Police cars stationed at the Traverse City post.
      "Our police officers are out there 24 hours, seven days a week," LaBelle said. "They already know CPR and the defibrillators can help them save lives."
      Lt. John Block of the Grand Traverse County Sheriff's Department knows first hand the life-saving potential of the defibrillators. A founding member of the Second Chance at Life Committee, Block has performed CPR 13 or 14 times on heart attack victims during his 30 years as a police officer. Only two of those people survived their heart attack.
      These statistics closely follow national success rates for CPR, which a study in Rochester, Minnesota, has shown saved heart attack victim only 2-13 percent of the time. The same study showed that after equipping police cars with defibrillators, the survival rate jumped to 40-60 percent.
      Nationwide, estimates show that if all police cars in the nation were equipped with defibrillators, 100,000 lives could be saved.
      "You feel bad when people die on you and you would like to be able to do something," Block said. "It means a great deal that we can do more to help because in the past we could only give CPR and that does not save many people."
      The work of the Second Chance at Life Committee is not over, however, despite exceeding their initial goal. Some of the money will go to seed an endowment fund for maintenance, training and to purchase additional units as local law enforcement agencies grow.
      A chicken dinner fund-raiser is scheduled for Saturday, September 4, at the VFW Post 2780 on Veterans Drive. Dinner will be served from 1 p.m. until all the chicken is gone and all proceeds will go to the Second Chance at Life Committee endowment fund.
      "The urgency may not be there but there is an ongoing need to raise money for the defibrillators," LaBelle said. "We actually started out hoping to buy just three, then were talking about maybe getting 20 units. Then Sheriff Barr said how could you have some police cars have some and not others, so we decided to try for all and did it."