Lt. Governor Pat Quinn joins with students and teachers at Carlos Fuentes Charter School to thank generous Illinois citizens for their donation of an Automated External Defibrillator.

Lt. Governor Pat Quinn and the American Heart Association joined the students and teachers of Carlos Fuentes Charter School in thanking Parent Heart Watch and the Sara Kathleen Schacht Memorial Foundation for the generous donation of an Automated External Defibrillator - the school's first and only AED.

The 490 students at Carlos Fuentes Charter School range in grade level from kindergarten to eighth grade and most don't spend their lunch period thinking about the health of their hearts.  But every student at Carlos Fuentes is now safer thanks to the easy accessibility of a life-saving AED on campus.  And that's just the way Erin Anderegg wants it.

Anderegg's daughter, Sara Kathleen Schacht, was a healthy 18-year-old freshman at Northern Illinois University when she died of sudden cardiac arrest in January of 2003.  In honor of her daughter, Anderegg founded the Sara Kathleen Schacht Memorial Foundation to help increase the availability of life-saving AED's in public spaces. 

 "We are blessed in Illinois to have dedicated persons like Erin Anderegg who are fueling a grassroots movement to increase the public's access to life-saving technology," Quinn said.  "Our goal is to make AED's as common as fire extinguishers in Illinois, and we want to salute the people who are making it happen."

The Sara Kathleen Schacht Memorial Foundation partnered with Parent Heart Watch and worked with Cardiac Science to donate the AED to Carlos Fuentes Charter School.  Liz Andrews of the American Heart Association and Juan Rangel, board president of the United Neighborhood Organization will also be on hand to celebrate the donation.

On behalf of Erin Anderegg and Parent Health Watch, Darrian Ford of Cardiac Science will present the new AED to Carlos Fuentes Principal Thomas Denneen. The presentation will be followed by an AED demonstration performed by David Lipman of SOS Technology and the American Heart Association.  Finally, students will put on a demonstration of their own, showing everyone the intricacies of double dutch jump roping.   

Lt. Governor Quinn's office joined with the Illinois General Assembly in 2004 to pass the landmark Colleen O'Sullivan Law requiring defibrillators in schools, indoor park district facilities and physical fitness facilities. Colleen O'Sullivan, a staff attorney for the Illinois House of Representatives, died of heart complications in 2002 after exercising at a health club facility.

At Quinn's urging, the General Assembly also enacted the Heartsaver AED Fund, which was signed into law by Governor Rod Blagojevich on Valentine's Day, 2005.  And in June of 2006, Governor Blagojevich signed a law creating the tax checkoff, allowing Illinois citizens to easily contribute to the Heartsaver AED Fund.

For more information about the Heartsaver AED Fund, log on to www.KeepIllinoisHealthy.org.