California Assembly Bill ACR23 Amended / Bill

 BILL NUMBER: ACR 23AMENDED BILL TEXT AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY FEBRUARY 19, 2015 INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Salas  (   Coauthor:   Assembly Member   Melendez   )  FEBRUARY 11, 2015 Relative to Automated External Defibrillator Awareness Week. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST ACR 23, as amended, Salas. AED Awareness Week. This measure would designate the week of February 22 through 28, 2015, as Automated External Defibrillator (AED) Awareness Week in California. Fiscal committee: no. WHEREAS, AED is an acronym used as an abbreviation for Automated External Defibrillator; and WHEREAS, AEDs are portable medical devices that use electrodes to automatically analyze and detect cardiac arrhythmia of sudden cardiac arrest patients; and WHEREAS, AEDs are able to produce a shock that stops the heart and allows it to return to a normal rhythm, a process called defibrillation; and WHEREAS, AEDs are used in the event of a sudden cardiac arrest, which is a condition in which the heart suddenly stops pumping blood and quivers erratically; and WHEREAS, About 360,000 cases of sudden cardiac arrest occur yearly, typically without any warning signs; and WHEREAS, More than 7,000 children and young adults experience sudden cardiac arrest in the United States each year; and  WHEREAS, Olivia Ruiz and Caleb Hannink, both Centennial High School students in Bakersfield, and Jose Beltran from Cecil Middle School in Delano, died from sudden cardiac arrest in 2004, 2012, and 2015, respectively, without an AED present on the campus; and  WHEREAS, A person currently has about a 5 percent chance of surviving an incident of cardiac arrest, which decreases by 7 to 10 percent with every minute that passes after a person's heart stops beating; and WHEREAS, Optimal AED placement allows a person to grab the AED and return to the victim within 90 seconds; and WHEREAS, Given that a person's chances of surviving a sudden cardiac arrest decrease so rapidly, it is important that Californians are aware of the importance of AEDs and their life-saving potential; now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate thereof concurring, That the week of February 22 through 28, 2015, be designated as Automated External Defibrillator (AED) Awareness Week in California; and be it further Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.