Close call prompts family to fundraise for AED at school
Cardiac incident catalyst for putting life-saving gear in public board facilities
Life can change in a heartbeat — even for a child.
Playing tag with his friends on the Wilfrid Walker school playground three years ago, Benjamin Fizzard fell unconscious to the ground.
The seven-year-old regained consciousness without CPR, but had to be rushed to the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton and fitted with an internal cardiac defibrillator and a pacemaker.
Benjamin’s cardiac incident on Dec. 4, 2014, was shocking, but his parents, Sheldon and Andrea, knew their son had heart issues before his collapse.
Months earlier, he had a loop recorder implanted to track his heart activity.
Information from the device indicated Benjamin had ventricular tachycardia. He was diagnosed with Brugada syndrome, a potentially life-threatening heart rhythm disorder that is sometimes inherited.
“It’s rare in this part of the world, however it’s extremely common in the Philippines as well as some of the Eastern European countries and my wife is of Italian descent,” Sheldon said. “Andrea was diagnosed shortly after Benjamin.”
Genetic testing has not confirmed if the couple’s 17-year-old daughter Caitlyn or 11-year-old daughter Emma have the syndrome.
After Benjamin’s close call three years ago, Sheldon and Andrea recognized that automated external defibrillators (AEDs) were readily available in many places throughout the city — but not at their son’s elementary school.
“Regina is probably one of the best places in Canada for the number of AEDs we have per capita and they’re placed in shopping malls, ice rinks, the casino — they are all over the place,” Sheldon said. “The school situation was a little bit different however.”
All high schools and Catholic elementary schools in Regina had AEDs, but public elementary schools didn’t.
Sheldon launched a GoFundMe page to raise money to purchase an AED for Wilfrid Walker.
Raising more than the $2,000 required to buy the AED, the extra funds were put toward battery and pad replacements for the unit.
“Before our device was placed in the school, it’s my understanding that the public school board decided the time was right to place an AED in every elementary school in the city,” Sheldon said.
AEDs were installed in public high schools in 2008 as a result of a corporate donation, said Terry Lazarou, spokesman for Regina Public Schools.
Benjamin’s experience was a catalyst for the public school board’s decision to put AEDs in all of its elementary schools in 2015.
“Their donation was very welcome,” Lazarou said.
When Ecole Wascana Plains School opened this fall, the AED moved with Benjamin.
Sheldon, a respiratory therapist, and his wife, Andrea, a cardiac care nurse, are well aware of the importance of AEDs in their roles as health-care providers.
The importance of the life-saving device was reinforced to them as parents after their son’s close call.
“The device is invaluable,” Sheldon said. “It’s extremely simple to use. Certainly I would recommend anybody have the training for CPR, but even in CPR training, there is the AED training. It’s a very quick thing to learn because these devices are completely automated. In my opinion, they’re idiot proof.”