It was only days ago that Bronny James, son of NBA star LeBron James, collapsed during basketball practice at the University of Southern California.
Since then, it's been revealed that Bronny suffered from cardiac arrest. He was released from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on Thursday.
The incident brings to light an issue ABC Action News highlighted for the last several years. Sudden cardiac arrest, according to the Mayo Clinic, is the leading cause of death for student-athletes.
The Florida-based organization Who We Play For has been on a crusade to require heart screenings and AED, or automated external defibrillator, access for student-athletes in elementary and high schools.
They've become the largest heart screening non-profit in the United States.
Two representatives from the organization sat down with ABC Action News on Friday to discuss this problem: Dr. Jamie Decker, an electro-physiologist from the John Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute, and Brittany Williams, who knows firsthand how sudden and unexpected all of this can be.
Watch the full interview below.
Who We Play For is continuing its mission to prevent sudden cardiac arrest in youth and one of its latest focuses is the Access to AEDs Act, a bipartisan bill that awards grants to elementary and secondary schools to assist with access to AEDs, which can be used when someone goes into cardiac arrest to restore a heartbeat.
