Everson Guild was 14 years old, a football player, band member, wrestler, and student council kid from Grand Ledge, Michigan. On July 24, 2017, he went into sudden cardiac arrest at football practice, just a month before he was supposed to start high school. His school was already designated a “My Heart Safe School,” with AEDs on site and coaches trained in CPR. Everyone did the right thing. Everson still didn’t survive, and his parents, Chris and Laura, say they take peace in knowing he had the best chance of survival he could have gotten.
Instead of letting that grief sit, the Guild family turned it into advocacy. Within a week of Everson’s death, schools in Brighton, Michigan had AEDs installed. Eight years later, every school there had one. Michigan now requires public schools to have cardiac emergency response plans and to train athletic coaches in CPR and AED use. Everson also left behind something deeply personal: “Everson Guild’s Guide to Being Awesome,” six rules for being a good human. His family calls the ripple effect of his story the “Ev effect.”
Here on the Suncoast, youth sports run year-round, from Little League fields to high school football stadiums. That makes this a local question as much as a Michigan one: does your child’s school or rec league have an AED, is it accessible, and does anyone on site know how to use it? The answer takes two minutes to find out, and it’s worth asking before the season starts.
Do you know where the AED is at your school or local sports complex? Tell us in the comments.
