HHF Finds Pulse on Preparedness

During a sudden cardiac arrest caused by ventricular fibrillation, only an automated external defibrillation (AED) device can restore the heart to a normal rhythm. For every minute a patient remains ventricular fibrillation, their chance of survival drops by 10%. More than 350,000 people will suffer a cardiac arrest in the U.S. this year. Without prompt treatment with an AED, ventricular fibrillation can be fatal in a matter of minutes.

This inspired the UPMC Hamot Emergency Preparedness team to partner with Hamot Health Foundation in 2019. The mission? Distribute AEDs and training throughout the community so more places are equipped to respond to a cardiac emergency.

Over the past five years, Hamot Health Foundation's investment has eclipsed $115,000. This funding has provided new and replacement AEDs throughout our community–in schools and churches, summer camps and apartment buildings, and even the Erie Zoo and ExpERIEnce Children’s Museum.

Chase Rowland, UPMC Hamot’s Emergency Preparedness Coordinator, helps lead this effort. He is pictured above with Susmita Sarki, one of HHF's community resource navigators, providing a new AED to a local church.

After conducting a site visit at the church and collaborating with staff to determine AED placement, Chase provided education on how to use the device. This is his customary process, which also concludes with an offer to return and provide CPR training. Some establishments, like the Erie Club, take him up on it.

Chase is quick to redirect any praise to the UPMC Hamot Emergency Preparedness team—his colleagues Jason Chenault, Lindie Stewart, and Bobby Fisher—embodying a true spirit of collaboration. This quality is at the heart of his passion for community-based work.

For Chase, “meeting people and making connections” is deeply meaningful. He values the unique opportunity to build trust within the community and understands its life-saving potential.

While the importance of saving lives is indisputable, there's something undeniably cool about receiving a personal invitation to observe snake surgery. You read that right: snake surgery! This was precisely the chance Chase was offered after providing AEDs to the Erie Zoo in 2023.

For reasons we will never understand, Chase passed on observing the snake surgery. But we know this: the work of the emergency preparedness team is highly valued, both within the hospital and throughout the community.