John Derynda died of sudden cardiac arrest after running a half-marathon. His sister, UW-Madison student Brittany Derynda, wants to make sure that doesn’t happen to anyone else.
She started a non-profit student organization dedicated to heart health — and now, Cardiac on Campus raises awareness by hosting free monthly CPR and AED classes for the UW-Madison community.
This past Sunday, the organization hosted its second annual Red Tutu Trot 5K on the Howard Temin Lakeshore Path during which participants ran through campus wearing red tutus to attract attention to the issue of heart diseases.
According to Derynda, a senior at UW-Madison, the group raised over $9,000 from the event. Cardiac on Campus will use the proceeds from the race to pay for the CPR certifications of students who attend their classes. Last year, the group was able to train and certify over 200 people.
“A lot of times, these classes cost around $50, but since we are on a college campus and know not a lot of students are able to afford that, we wanted to provide them for free for everyone,” Derynda said.
Cardiac on Campus’s free training classes are held twice a month in the Student Activity Center, Memorial Union or Union South and are led by six of the group’s CPR certified members. Students who complete the training receive a National Safety Council Certification.
While the majority of the group's funds go toward covering the cost of the CPR certifications, Derynda said the organization has plans to donate AED defibrillators to campus residence halls this coming spring. She said heart health is an important topic to think about, even at a young age.
“Heart health is something that a lot of college students don’t see as important,” she said. “People think of it as something that only affects their grandparents, but it is really important to start thinking about it at a young age because the age we are at right now is when things start to kind of develop.”
To learn more about Cardiac on Campus’s classes, visit cardiaconcampus.weebly.com
