A bill that State Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe sponsored would require school athletes and their families to get, read and sign material about sudden cardiac arrest.
The bill recently passed unanimously in the Senate and went to the House of Representatives.
McAuliffe noted that sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death in youth athletes.
The bill would apply to all of the of nearly 800 member high schools and middle or junior high schools, both public and private, in the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, the rulemaking body for sports in the state.
The bill requires the WIAA to work with member schools and the University of Washington Sports Cardiology Center to develop and make available an online pamphlet that provides athletes, their parents and coaches with information about sudden cardiac arrest. The online pamphlet would include information on the nature, risk, symptoms and warning signs, prevention and treatment of sudden cardiac arrest. The online pamphlet would need to be posted on the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s website.
Each year, prior to participation in an interscholastic sport, students and their parents would need to sign a form stating that they reviewed an online pamphlet about sudden cardiac arrest.
The bill would require the WIAA, member schools and the UW Sports Cardiology Medicine Center to make available an existing online sudden cardiac arrest prevention program for coaches and require coaches to complete the online sudden cardiac arrest prevention program. Coaches must provide a certificate showing completion of the online sudden cardiac arrest prevention program to the school.
Private nonprofit organizations using school property would need to provide a statement of compliance with the policies for sudden-cardiac awareness.
McAuliffe, the ranking minority Democrat on the senate committee on early learning and K-12 education, said last week that she introduced the bill after hearing about a Snohomish County student who died from sudden cardiac arrest on a sports field.
McAuliffe represents the 1st Legislative district, including most of Mountlake Terrace, all of Brier and Bothell, unincorporated areas of Snohomish County north and east of Bothell, north Kirkland, and unincorporated areas of King County between Bothell and Kirkland.
Evan Smith can be reached at schsmith@frontier.com.
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