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District nurse outlines cardiac emergency plans and AED protocols for all school buildings
Summary
Huntington County Community Schools’ corporation nurse presented venue-specific cardiac emergency response plans aligned to Indiana Code and American Heart Association guidance, emphasizing AED placement, a three-minute response standard, regular drills and mandatory training for staff and coaches.
Corporation nurse Jenny Rainey told trustees at the June 8 work session that Huntington County Community Schools has developed venue-specific cardiac emergency response plans for every building and is implementing a districtwide program to improve survival from sudden cardiac arrest.
Rainey, who said she has been in the corporation nurse role for almost a year, outlined five core principles for the plans: required operational AEDs for activities with increased risk (athletics, band, drama), publicly posted venue-specific plans that identify AED locations, a ‘‘three-minute’’ retrieval and shock standard, mandatory yearly training for emergency response team members with CPR/AED re-certification every two years, and return-to-play procedures that require parental and physician documentation.
She cited state guidance and programs such as the American Heart Association’s HeartSafe Schools and referenced Indiana Code (Title 20, Article 34, Chapter 8) that requires venue-specific plans and AED location information. Rainey reported that the district has performed monthly AED checks and that, to her knowledge, an AED was deployed once (in 2023) at a basketball game involving an older adult with known heart problems; that person later died despite the response. She emphasized that prompt CPR and AED use dramatically improve survival chances and that drills are essential to meet the three-to-five minute window proven to lift survival rates.
Board members asked whether staffing and training levels are sufficient; Rainey said emergency response teams are trained annually, coaches receive yearly sudden-cardiac-arrest training, and staff must be informed of AED locations before events. Trustees praised the work and stressed the importance of drills, particularly because local EMS response times average 6–12 minutes in the region.
No formal action was taken; trustees thanked Rainey for the presentation and asked staff to continue work on posting and correcting venue plans and to follow up on minor errors noted in the materials distributed to the board.
