Wayne Community Schools, in collaboration with Children’s Hospital & Medical Center, announced that it has received a Heart Safe designation through Project ADAM, a program that ensures schools have automated defibrillator (AED) equipment, response training and advanced emergency preparedness procedures in the event of a Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) on campus.
Children’s Project ADAM program partners with schools and organizations statewide to encourage preparedness for an emergency situation and save lives.
“Wayne Community Schools is excited to have been given the opportunity to partner with Children's Hospital and Project Adam to become a Heart Safe Designated school. The goal of Project Adam is to identify signs of sudden cardiac arrest and to be able to provide a shock with our AED within 2-3 minutes if needed during an emergency. We have emergency response teams of school staff in place in our buildings. Our team has been able to successfully and efficiently complete their simulation drills in each school district building, and mock drills with the staff will occur at least twice a year to work on our process and protocol," said Abby Wragge, School Nurse for Wayne Community Schools.
"Children's hospital staff helped run a simulation and test our protocol. Our team was unaware what the scenario would be or where it would take place. Local law enforcement also worked with us to allow the team to call 9-1-1. They were able to talk with dispatch as if this were a real event. It really made the drill realistic for the staff. We have six AEDs throughout our buildings which allow us to have a quick response time. I have also been able to certify almost all of our full time staff in CPR this year. I am so grateful that we are able to partner with Children's Hospital to help make Wayne Community Schools a safe environment for students, staff, and visitors.” Wragge added.
Project ADAM (Automated Defibrillators in Adam’s Memory) was named for Adam Lemel, a 17-year-old Wisconsin teenager who suffered a fatal sudden cardiac arrest in 1999 while playing basketball at school. Access to an AED and immediate care could have saved Adam’s life.
Project ADAM’s Heart Safe School program ensures schools and organizations have well-maintained AEDs available on campus, CPR- and AED-trained staff and a practiced emergency plan to respond to a collapse, giving students, staff and community visitors the best possible chance to survive an unexpected cardiac event.
Children’s, the region’s only hospital dedicated exclusively to serving children and teens, was designated a Project ADAM affiliate hospital in 2022 and plans to welcome more than a dozen schools and organizations with Heart Safe designations in 2023. Matt Sorensen, M.D., an electrophysiologist and member of Children’s Cardiac Care team, serves as the local medical director for Project ADAM. The initiative marks a strategic investment to align Children’s cardiac experts as an important resource for community schools and is a collaboration between Children’s Criss Heart Center and Community Health & Advocacy teams.
“Project ADAM is a nationwide, collaborative effort to improve the safety of our schools and community and help them achieve preparedness for an unexpected cardiac event, and we are proud to serve as an affiliate hospital of this exceptional program,” Dr. Sorensen said. “Becoming Heart Safe reflects an exemplary commitment to the health and safety of people of all ages across our communities. Each school and organization is key to these efforts, and we look forward to seeing the continued growth of the Heart Safe program and Project ADAM’s reach across the state and region.”
According to the American Heart Association, more than 350,000 out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrests occur in the United States each year, and approximately 10 percent survive. Since 1999, more than 4,000 schools across the country have achieved a Heart Safe designation.
Learn more about Children’s Project ADAM program at ChildrensOmaha.org/ProjectADAM and the national Project ADAM program at ProjectADAM.com.
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Children’s Hospital & Medical Center is the only full-service, pediatric health care center in Nebraska, providing expertise in more than 50 pediatric specialty services to children across a five-state region and beyond. Children’s is home to Nebraska’s only Level IV regional Newborn Intensive Care Unit and the state’s only Level II Pediatric Trauma Center. Children’s is recognized as a 2022-23 Best Children’s Hospital by U.S. News & World Report in Pulmonology & Lung Surgery and Urology.
Visit us online at ChildrensOmaha.org.
