Dr. Sanford Gips fights for one's right to own a
defibrillator.
Imagine this scenario: You're sitting down to a home-cooked
family meal, chatting about your latest project at work.
Your children are talking excitedly about the lessons they
learned at school. The kids' grandparents have joined you
for dinner and are sharing old stories from their
childhoods. Then, in the blink of an eye, your lives are
changed forever when your spouse has a heart attack.
Or, imagine this scenario: You're at your child's
basketball
game on a Friday night, cheering him on as you do every
week. He's having a stellar game; he's the top-scoring
player of the night. You're the proud parent smiling widely
on the sidelines. His coach couldn't be more pleased with
his performance. Then, suddenly, he collapses to the ground
in cardiac arrest. Unbeknownst to you, he has an
undiagnosed
heart condition.
Such tragic events happen every single day, and often times
they are deadly. Lives are shattered, when, in what seems
like a split second, loved ones are taken from us
unexpectedly and most often times way too soon. The
statistics are frightening. According to the American Heart
Association, sudden cardiac arrest claims an estimated
335,000 Americans each year. That's 1,000 lives each day,
or
one life every minute.
Dr. Sanford Gips has made it his life's mission to change
that statistic. He is on a crusade to ultimately make
automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, more widely
available to everyone. "If you don't get CPR, you're dead,"
says Gips. "Your likelihood of surviving if you had CPR but
not an AED shock is nine percent, whereas if you had CPR
and
an AED shock, your survival increases to 36 percent. So a
four-fold increase. This is the key factor of survival for
people in cardiac arrest."
To help spread his message, the Moorestown cardiologist
created the "Save a Life Initiative" about a year ago,
which
is run by Gips' cardiology group, Cardiovascular Associates
of the Delaware Valley (CADV), and provides free AED and
CPR
training throughout South Jersey. What inspired Gips to
pilot this program were two very tragic, yet very real
incidents. He recalls the fateful story of David Sheldon, a
high school buddy from his home state of Ohio.
"It was a friend and classmate of mine who died of sudden
cardiac death at age 17. This was doubly ironic and sad
because, one, his brother also died a sudden cardiac death
and, two, his father was a cardiologist," recalls Gips.
These boys, he points out, had undiagnosed heart problems,
yet their lives may have been saved if AEDs were on
hand.
"Back then, without defibrillators, there's nothing you
could do." Sitting at his house for a condolence call, he
remembers of the children's father, "sitting in the library
just seeing the walls of cardiology books and here's a guy
who is powerless at the time to prevent what happened."
Dr. Gips also recalls the heartbreaking story of Steven
Domalewski, who made national headlines in the summer of
2006. "It was the 12-year-old boy in Wayne, NJ. He was
playing baseball and got hit in the chest with a baseball
and had a cardiac arrest. He survived but he's brain
damaged." The most unusual part of Domalewski's story, the
doctor says, is that the ball hit the young pitcher at the
exact millisecond between heartbeats, which caused an
extremely rare condition called commotio cordis, basically
a
fatal heart rhythm.
"What would be a way to solve the problem is to have
defibrillators available at places like football and
baseball fields. If there are parents nearby or a coach or
anyone that can use a defibrillator and do CPR, that kid
could essentially have been immediately resuscitated and
literally could have gotten up and finished the game.
Instead, the kid is now in a persistent vegetative
state."
Sandy, as Gips is known familiarly, says such incidents are
a true wake-up call. "People don't even flinch to buy a
$2000 television set. Here I was and I wouldn't spend $1000
on a defibrillator. I made a personal decision at the time
that I was going to get a defibrillator for myself." That's
when he made the personal decision to also start his "Save
a
Life Initiative," which he breaks down into three
phases.
"The first phase was to convince all my partners that these
are life-saving devices and that we should set an example
by
owning these devices." In the end, all 24 cardiologists in
his group purchased personal AEDs. He says it was no easy
feat convincing them to do so.
"You don't think you're going to need it. The fact of the
matter is, people spend that kind of money on things you're
not going to use all of the time, like burglar alarms. This
[AED] is actually more likely to get use out of it than a
burglar alarm at some time in your life, either using it on
a friend, a relative, a parent."
Phase two, says Gips, is the public education campaign. "We
provide basic education on how to do CPR and how to use
AEDs. AEDs are designed so that a six-year-old child can
use
them. It takes about two minutes to learn how to use it.
It's made to walk you through it."
The second it's opened, an automated voice gives
instructions: "Begin by removing all clothing from the
patient's chest."
Free seminars on CPR and AED use have been held so far in
Cherry Hill and Washington Township, and CADV is planning
upcoming demonstrations at health fairs throughout South
Jersey.
The key to continue the "Save a Life Initiative," says
Gips,
is securing the proper funding. "Phase three is to raise
money [from the hospital systems] to purchase the
defibrillators for deserving non-profits. The kind of
places
you'd want these things anywhere large numbers of people
would gather, like community centers, schools, senior
citizen centers, golf courses, sport stadiums."
CADV has already donated AEDs to non-profit organizations,
including Moorestown High School, where Gips' teenage son,
Gordon, attends. Gips adds, "It's very important for the
police departments to have them. In Moorestown, Cherry Hill
and Haddon Heights, all police cars have AEDs, but most
towns [police departments] in New Jersey do not. It's
important because police cars are likely to get to your
house much sooner than an ambulance." And the sooner, the
better, he explains. The survival rate is 90 percent in the
first minute of sudden cardiac arrest and decreases by
about
10 percent with every minute that passes.
Robert Borda of South Philadelphia knows all too well how
crucial time can be. The 66-year-old was at the movie
theatre about a year ago when his heart stopped. "My wife
thought I was asleep, then I didn't wake up. She yelled I
need help!'" Coincidentally, Dr. George Hager, III, a
surgeon from Virtua Hospital in South Jersey, was in that
same movie theatre. "Dr. Hager jumped over the seat. His
wife, who's a nurse, was also there. They started CPR. Then
the squad came in and used a defibrillator. I was taken to
the hospital and Dr. Gips did my catheterization. I feel
great now," says Borda.
His wife, Carol, says the doctors couldn't believe he
survived. "We believe in guardian angels. The doctors said,
Your husband's story is a miracle. He had a one percent
chance of survival.'"
For more information on purchasing a defibrillator or
attending the "Save a Life Initiative" seminars, go to
www.cadvhearthouse.com or call 856-546-3003.
Dr. Sandy Gips received his doctorate from Johns Hopkins
University, is currently the Assistant Medical Director at
Cooper Center for Interventional Cardiology, and is a
Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at UMDNJ School of
Medicine. He lives in Moorestown, NJ with his wife, Debra,
15-year-old son, Gordon, and 12-year-old daughter,
Julia.
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