Bothwell Foundation Presents AED to Smithton Youth Sports Complex

Wear Red for Women, a Bothwell Foundation committee, recently gave an automated external defibrillator (AED) to the Smithton Youth Sports Complex located south of Sedalia on Highway TT.

An AED is a small, lightweight device that allows individuals and first responders to treat sudden cardiac arrest. The machine automatically analyzes the heart rhythm and when appropriate, it delivers an electrical shock to the heart to restore its normal rhythm.

According to research, most sudden heart attack victims have good chances of survival under certain common conditions, including that the event is witnessed, the collapse occurs in a large public place, an AED is handy, and bystanders use CPR and the AED.

Funds to purchase the device were raised during the 2022 Wear Red for Women luncheon and auction. The committee’s goal is to have AEDs in every place people work, learn, play or pray in Sedalia and Pettis County. Since the inception of the luncheon event in 2020, 47 AEDs have been placed in or committed to various locations. The 2023 Wear Red for Women event is Feb. 24, 2023, and tickets will be available in January.

In the photo: From left: Trish Henson, Susan Mergen and Rhonda Ahern, Wear Red for Women committee members; Dianne Simon, Thompson Hills Investment Corporation vice president and Wear Red committee co-chair; Darin Stoll, Smithton Youth Sports Complex; Lori Wightman, Bothwell Regional Health Center CEO and Wear Red committee co-chair; and Lauren Thiel-Payne, Bothwell Foundation executive director.