Our first shipment of CPR kits have arrived. We are preparing to distribute them. Thanks to all who helped fund the purchase! If interested in donating in the future, you can go to http://www.giveto.pitt.edu/cardiacarrest​

A big "Thank You" to each and every one of our 26 donors as well as to everyone who helped develop and promote this important project!

Your support helped us raise $5,250 to go towards buying ~ 185 home based CPR kits for Cardiac Arrest Survivors! Your help will make a direct difference in hundreds of lives as survivors of cardiac arrest return home after their hospital stays.

Thank you again on behalf of our entire team!

Ankur Doshi (and team)

Thanks again to all of our supporters who have made the Cardiac Arrest Survivors' Support campaign such as success up to now! We have 7 more days to go and so far have raised over 90% of our goal of $5,000.

Our campaign has been seen on social media and was featured in the Pitt News student newspaper today!

We still need YOUR HELP to raise the last ~$400 in order to reach our goal. The last push will help us purchase 15 more CPR kits for our cardiac arrest survivors. Reaching the goal will also help us spread more awareness about the disease of cardiac arrest and the needs of survivors.

You can support this project by giving a donation on our PROJECT PAGE. Or, you can promote this campaign to your own friends and family using social media. Any little bit helps!

After suffering cardiac arrest 4 years ago, Susan has made a full recovery. Susan was training for the Pittsburgh Half Marathon in November 2011 when she collapsed on a city street. Two Pitt medical students came to her aid and gave her CPR. Firefighters arrived several minutes later and shocked her heart with an AED.

Susan now serves as the National Spokesperson for the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation and the national CPR Spokesperson for the American Heart Association.

She works out 4 times a week doing high intensity interval training and indoor cycling and hot yoga. This October, she flew to California to attended the wedding of the couple who gave her CPR. They are now doctors in Los Angeles.

For more information regarding Susan's story and Sudden Cardiac Arrest in Pittsburgh please go to:

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/tag/sudden-cardiac-arrest/

WOW! Here is a big “THANK YOU” to all of you, our supporters in this campaign! Whether you have donated money or promoted this project via email and social media, or both, YOU have been integral to the success we have had so far.

In the past week, we have raised OVER $2,000 with our total donations standing at $4,286. We will use this money to purchase over 140 home-based CPR training kits for survivors of cardiac arrest! We hope to do more, though. We still need a push to complete this project to our initial goal of $5,000. That level will ensure that EVERY cardiac arrest survivor that we come into contact with be given a CPR kit.

The bystander CPR rates in this country and this region lag behind those of other developed nations. We know that each kit we have given out trains at least 1-2 new individuals in what to do in the setting of witnessing a cardiac arrest. The more people who know CPR, the bigger the safety net is for everyone!

Please continue to support this important campaign! If you haven’t already, please share our PROJECT PAGE with friends, family, co-workers, and anyone else you think will be interested. Additionally, support us on Twitter or Facebook or on any other media outlets. Feel free to use the sample posts below.

THANKS AGAIN!

Sample posts:

You can be part of changing the lives of survivors of #cardiacarrest https://engage.pitt.edu/cardiacarrest @UPittCCAS

Survivors of #cardiacarrest face many challenges. Please donate to the @UPittCCAS campaign to make a difference! https://engage.pitt.edu/cardiacarrest

Thanks to all who have supported this campaign so far!

I wanted to give everyone an update about my life. It has been just over 7 months since my Sudden Cardiac Arrest at the Pittsburgh Marathon in May of this year, and I am incredibly grateful to report that my life is mostly back to normal. I am back at work fulltime, can travel for work and fun, spend time with my friends and family, and am even running again (albeit not more than 6 miles at a time, which I don't get much sympathy for when I tell folks that). 

While I know see a couple of doctors several times per year, instead of one time every other year, I've learned to live happily and comfortably with the limited restrictions that I have as a result of my SCA and the defibrillator in my chest. Activities such as marathons and triathlons may be out of the question, but I am in the process of planning my first heli-skiing trip in Colorado for this winter.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about my Sudden Cardiac Arrest on that race day in early May that I had trained so well for, but I am blessed to still be here and living life with reinvigorated perspective and gratitude. As my colleague, who is also an SCA survivor, said to me in the weeks after my accident - "The grass will be a little greener, the skies a little bluer, and the birds chirp a little louder each day." That statement couldn't me more true for me today. [By the way, the attached photo was taken at a friend's wedding this October!]

Best and thanks again!

Jeff