Proposed Nassau bill would mandate AEDs in all county parks, courts

Robbie Levine was running the bases during Little League practice in Merrick on Sept. 27, 2005, like he’d done dozens of times before, when the unthinkable happened.

The healthy and energetic 9-year-old collapsed as he arrived at home plate and never woke up. While Robbie’s father, Dr. Craig Levine, performed CPR on the field, Robbie could not be revived as the one tool that may have helped restart the fourth grader’s heart — an AED, or automated external defibrillator — was nowhere to be found.

But AEDs could soon become more commonplace around Nassau County.

A bill set to be introduced next week in the Nassau Legislature would mandate the installation and maintenance of visible and clearly marked AED stations at all county-owned athletic fields, parks and courts. Suffolk County has mandated AEDs in all county parks since 2001.

'Common sense'

Robbie’s Law, introduced by Nassau Legis. Seth Koslow, a Merrick Democrat, would also mandate AED training for coaches, referees and relevant personnel.

"The more places these machines are, the more lives that are going to be saved," said Jill Levine, Robbie’s mother, who has run a nonprofit that distributes free AED devices for nearly two decades. "It just makes common sense."

Last year, a statewide law went into effect mandating camps and youth sports programs with five or more teams have an AED on hand during games, practices, clinics or tournament, along with at least one person — such as a staffer, volunteer, coach or umpire — trained to use the defibrillator.

But that measure applied only to organized youth sports, leaving participants and spectators in more loosely structured games and practices at risk in the event of a medical emergency, Koslow said.

At a news conference Monday at Eisenhower Park, Koslow, a longtime Little League coach, pointed to a group of seniors playing softball nearby and a group of children kicking around a soccer ball as among those the bill is designed to protect.

"We're trying to prepare for people who want to come here and have a catch with their son or play kickball with their daughter," said Koslow, who is challenging County Executive Bruce Blakeman in November. "If something happens, we can't expect them to first get on the phone, call someone from the Parks Department, locate the AED, which might be on the other side of the park, then come back and use it. All those seconds count, and we're trying to make sure we can speed things up."

With about 200 county-owned ballfields and courts across Nassau and AED kits costing an estimated $500 apiece, Koslow estimates his law would cost the county about $100,000 to implement. 

Nassau Presiding Officer Howard Kopel (R-Lawrence) said he was reviewing the legislation but pointed to existing state and county policies that already equip many of the locations covered by the bill with AED devices.

During a media availability Monday, Blakeman added that every county park and building has multiple AEDs, including nine in Eisenhower Park alone, and staff trained to use them.

But he conceded "there are technical issues and there are practicality issues with having them on every field; on every tennis court; on every basketball court. Those involve the operation of the AED and who's qualified to operate it."

Levine insists there are gaps in AED coverage across Nassau and that she hears regularly from groups, including those that play at county facilities, seeking access to the lifesaving devices.

"If AEDs were everywhere they needed to be, we would have no one to donate them to," she said. 

Life saving tool

Both Nassau and Suffolk already require AEDs at any venue where high school athletics are played or practiced. Those requirements were implemented on Long Island in 2001, and statewide in 2002, after Louis Acompora, a Northport boys lacrosse player, died from a blow to the chest he suffered in a game in 2000.

State law also already requires AEDs in "places of public assembly," including ballparks and gyms.

Sudden cardiac arrest is a leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for an estimated 325,000 deaths each year outside of hospitals, statistics show.

According to the American Heart Association, every minute without defibrillation after sudden cardiac arrest decreases the chance of survival by 10%.

And while estimates vary, roughly one in 50,000 to one in 100,000 young athletes die annually of sudden cardiac arrest, according to the Mayo Clinic.

"AEDs save lives," Levine said. "Anytime an AED is somewhere, whether it's on a field or in a school or at an airport, it gives an increased chance of saving someone's life. Because sudden cardiac arrest does happen. And it actually happens a lot."