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By Margo Rutledge Kissell, Staff Writer Updated 1:48 AM Friday, September 23, 2011 DAYTON — Two months before 9-year-old Unique Figgers collapsed at Westwood PreK-8 School and died Tuesday, Dayton Public Schools laid off 10 school nurses — one-third of its nursing staff. Among them was the full-time nurse at...

Far too often, the death of a student is defined by the setting, not the cause.  What caused this student to drown?  I hope that they investigate sudden cardiac arrest. SAINT JOHN – A 17-year-old student died Tuesday, two days after he nearly drowned in the pool at the Canada...

For the past five years, Simon Sudman has been been the motivation behind every heart screening.  That changed today.  Simon Prushan, a student at Radnor Middle School, brought a screening to his school as part of his bar mitzvah project.  We were blown away by his leadership, maturity and commitment....

A Federal Government Advisory Committee is urging the use of this test.  Two Governors (Maryland and New Jersey) recently signed laws mandating the use of this test.  Clearly, the hearts of newborns are front of mind. These laws require that a Pulse Ox test be performed on all newborns.  The test...

KABB Fox San Antonio – August 14, 2011 One family hopes its heartbreak can prevent others from losing an active teen to sudden cardiac death. It’s free and it’s fast.  “Our goal is to be faster than Starbucks,” says cardiologist Dr. George Rodgers.  It’s painless and non-invasive — high-tech heart...

The Miami Children’s Hospital Program starts soon By Diana Gonzalez |  Friday, Jul 29, 2011 Carolina Richardson just started as a dancer at Florida International University, and she was at Miami Children’s Hospital on Friday getting an EKG as part of her physical for college athletics. Richardson had a disease...

The Stanford study released this week shows that pediatric cardiologists are not very good at interpreting the ECG exams.  This is an institutional problem that should be corrected by the medical community.  Unfortunately, articles like the one below, are misleading the public by suggesting that the tests that look for heart condition in...

Thousands of kids came out for the Harry Potter screening this past week.  While they were all entertained, none of them left any healthier or safer.  You’ll have to come to a Simon’s Fund heart screening for that where 1 out of every 100 kids will discover a heart condition. It may...

The coroner said that Simon died of SIDS.  However, that answer was not good enough for us because it doesn’t really mean anything.  I’m glad that other people are starting to dig deeper into SIDS .  However, I’m very disappointed that this article only talks about back to sleep campaigns. ...

This is a great story about how raising awareness and leveraging the internet, in this case, facebook, can save a life.  Facebook Saved My Son’s Life