About HeartCharged

We Are
HeartCharged

We are Bethany and Hannah. We're sisters, heart patients, advocates, and the founders of HeartCharged.

Our work is inseparable from our own journey: being diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy as teenagers, learning to live with implanted defibrillators, surviving sudden cardiac arrest, and using what we have experienced to help others.

heartcharged founders bethany and hannah keime-2

Founder Bios

Meet The Founders

HeartCharged is personal because it was created by patients. Bethany and Hannah bring different creative strengths to the work, but share a commitment to making patients visible, informed, supported, and heard.

Bethany Keime

Visionary Behind HeartCharged
Co-Founder & Co-President
Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy & Heart Failure Patient, S-ICD & ICD Recipient
Author, Advocate, Educator, Content Creator, Speaker

“I have realized I should live before I die.

I have realized life doesn’t end with a diagnosis.

I have realized purpose can come from pain.

I have realized that gratitude can coexist with grief.”

- Bethany Keime

Bethany is a self-proclaimed Bionic Babe, living her life as a scars-out kind of person. She has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM. It’s a debilitating disease and a life-threatening chronic condition. HCM can cause sudden cardiac arrest which is why Bethany is bionic, currently with her second implanted defibrillator.

As a young girl, Bethany had ballerina dreams and she worked hard to make them a reality. She attended a renowned performing arts high school, joined a pre-professional ballet program, spent summers at the most elite training, and earned a degree in dance. But then the reality of her worsening cardiac condition meant being a ballerina was only a dream once more.

Bethany is a big proponent of body positivity. The gratitude and acceptance she has shown in her journey has inspired many to accept their bodies and life-saving treatments as well. Bethany will tell you herself that when she was told she needed a defibrillator implanted that she, of course, worried what it would look like.

She was at the time earning her BFA in Dance Performance. She communicated with her body. She had been diagnosed with HCM for 5 years when she passed out a time then two. All of a sudden, her doctors told her that in 10 days she would have a defibrillator implanted.

There were days of doubt between the implanting and the unveiling. It took weeks for the bandages to come off so she could see who she had become. And when she saw, and it was no particularly small thing she saw, as the S-ICD was large and her body small, she looked on her new look and smiled. She continues to communicate with her body as she unhesitatingly demonstrates to the world that scars and bionic bulges are not an imperfection, but a testament of strength and resiliency.

Those thoughts brought her to envision HeartCharged, originally an Instagram account where people could find each other and see the raw and real truths of life as a young person with a heart condition. The first post reflects Bethany’s goal. It is a quote, “One day you will tell your story about how you overcame that battle you went through, and God will send you the exact people who need to hear that story.” She found she needed their stories as well.

Bethany has transformed HeartCharged into a multi-award winning, internationally-recognized non-profit organization which has won the respect and support of patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals around the world. When she learns of a preventable death, she cries hard and fights harder.

She is a bold and powerful communicator and a sought-after speaker. She is a true patient advocate and creator of change. She holds many advisory positions. She is a social media consultant.

“We also learned that waiting for others to create change isn’t always effective. We believed initially that policymakers or institutions would solve these problems. But we realized meaningful change often begins at the individual level.

We recognized that we have the power to create change ourselves. We didn’t have to wait for someone else to act.

That realization was empowering. Instead of waiting, we began building the change we hoped to see.”

- Bethany Keime

Follow Bethany on Instagram or Facebook @heartcharged
Email her at Bethany@getheartcharged.org

Hannah Keime

Co-Founder of HeartCharged
Co-Founder, President/CEO, & Creative Director of HeartCharged
Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy & Heart Failure Patient, ICD Recipient, Sudden Cardiac Arrest Survivor
Filmmaker, Content Creator
Advocate, Educator, Speaker, Humorist

“I decided to pick up a camera and a pen to create the missing stories of young heart patients. My goal is to make young heart patients known to the world, stop their solitary suffering, and end preventable deaths.”

- Hannah Keime

Hannah was 14 when she was unexpectedly diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM, a deadly heart condition. The cardiologist told her that day that she didn’t know how she hadn’t dropped dead yet. She was prescribed medications and life-style changes, including immediately stopping the competitive dance and sports she participated in.

Benched by her disease due to risk factors, Hannah found herself with a lot of time on her hands and solitude while her friends still engaged in their activities. Her therapy was watching shows which happily developed into her life-long addiction to TV and films. She found solace but soon realized an almost complete lack of representation of young heart patients. No wonder nobody understood her. Her disability was invisible in more ways than one. Plus if people did not know young people could have heart conditions, how would they be treated and survive like she was. So driven by gratitude, passion, and personal experience, she determined to bring heart warriors to the screen.

Hannah Keime brings her unique perspective from the other side of death to her work. Hannah survived a sudden cardiac arrest at 17 thanks to her implanted defibrillator. With gratitude, she is on a mission to flip the current dismal survival rates from sudden cardiac arrest and undiagnosed heart conditions which others have allowed for too long.

Eclectic, insightful, quirky, multi-talented, deeply thoughtful, witty, and raw are all words one could use to describe Hannah, and she would agree to every one of them. Her ability to write, film, edit, and portray every character in an 8-character reel is astounding. Utilizing the medium of film, she is able to explain a symptom a cardiomyopathy patient lives with in under 30 seconds. She can transmit what life as a young patient feels like. She can describe the mental health challenges of the chronic patient community. She wants the truths admitted and understood. As such, she has even shared footage of being shocked a second time by her implanted defibrillator, or ICD, this time while conscious.

Hannah does not shy from the uncomfortable conversations or fear the stigma that might come from sharing her condition. As soon as she was diagnosed, she began speaking out to groups and individuals, even in assemblies in her high school, about warning signs and preventative measures. She started advocating for legislation and has seen many of her initiatives turn to law.

Hannah is a bold and experienced speaker, panelist, and facilitator. She is a social media creator and consultant. She is a collaborator, a friend, and a filmmaker.

Her plans before her? Continuing her educational outreach and patient empowerment, and always seeking to bring more authentic representation to the screen to harness the vast potential of storytelling for awareness and support.

“When I got diagnosed with my heart condition, HCM, I started googling HCM. All I could find for people my age were children who had died. Honestly, just a little over a decade ago, most people with cardiomyopathies didn’t make it to adulthood. There was little information for us as young people. We’ve helped change that. You can find HeartCharged, find information, find community, and most of all find hope.”

- Hannah Keime

Follow Hannah on Instagram or Facebook @heartcharged

Email her at hannah@getheartcharged.org

Hannah & Bethany

“The Fresh Faces of HCM Patient Leadership” is an accolade Bethany & Hannah have earned due to the potent way in which they have been able to connect. Their accomplishments stem from the combination of their infused passions for patient advocacy coupled with the myriad of creative talents they’ve honed. They constantly create memorable, educational, and actionable content. Their work ranges from photos to reels to short films, from interviews to articles. They achieve a reality that grips you and a message that touches your heart and imprints on your brain.

They have presented before groups as diverse as elementary-school students, medical professionals, and international gatherings of fellow advocates. Cardiologists learn from them, young people listen to them, and patients relate to them.

Their wit and realism make people laugh, cry, think, and act. Their eclectic content has spurned global campaigns and brought life-saving knowledge to millions. Within the social health space, they have won awards, serve as consultants, and have written on the use of social media in the health landscape.

Bethany and Hannah’s work can be seen on social media, particularly their hub @HeartCharged on Instagram, where it consistently garners a yearly organic 10M+ reach. Personally, they can be seen around the world speaking at conferences, as well as one-to-one with fellow patients.

What we do

Turning Lived Experience Into Lifesaving Action

Our mission is to help end preventable deaths from sudden cardiac arrest and undiagnosed heart conditions while providing honest, patient-to-patient education and support.

Our work through HeartCharged goes hand in hand with our journey, surviving, understanding, and working to improve both survival and quality of life for others.

We help people recognize warning signs, understand their family medical histories, pursue appropriate screening and testing, prepare for cardiac emergencies, and feel less alone while navigating life with a heart condition.

Through educational campaigns, school presentations, CPR and AED instruction, interviews, events, advocacy, social media, and personal conversations, we turn knowledge into action.

Our work focuses on

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Finding heart conditions before tragedy occurs

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Promoting heart screening and genetic testing

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Expanding CPR education and access to AEDs

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Sharing the honest reality of life with heart disease

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Helping people recognize warning signs

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Preparing communities to respond to sudden cardiac arrest

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Supporting informed and empowered patients

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Creating meaningful patient-to-patient connection

Book Us

Book HeartCharged

Lived experience. Memorable storytelling. A reason to act.

Bring HeartCharged to your next conference, community program, school, podcast, panel, or special event.

Bethany and Hannah are available to deliver presentations, participate in panels, facilitate conversations, and create programs tailored to the needs of your audience.

Their distinctive form of “edutainment” combines wit and wisdom, personal experience and practical knowledge. The result is a well-paced, engaging presentation that can make people laugh, move them to tears, challenge the way they think, and inspire them to act.

As two young women who found purpose in pain, learned to embrace the scars that once frightened them, and built an international patient-support community, Bethany and Hannah bring authenticity to every room they enter.

Book Us To Speak At Your Next Event

Speaking Topics

Patient Advocacy and Support

Advocating for Yourself and Others
Facing an Unexpected Diagnosis
Creating Patient-to-Patient Support
General Patient Support and Education
When Life Is Derailed in Your Youth

Living With Heart Disease

Bionic Babes: Life With ICDs, Surgery, and Shocks
Being Big-Hearted: Living With HCM
Life With an Invisible Disability
The View From the Other Side of Death
Confronting Mortality at a Young Age

Identity, Resilience, and Mental Health

Finding Gratitude, Passion, and Purpose Through Adversity
Maintaining Mental Health While Living With Poor Physical Health
Body Positivity, Self-Acceptance, and Mental Health
Finding Humor in the Pain

Awareness and Action

The Warning Signs We Cannot Ignore
Finding the 1 in 300 Young People With an Undiagnosed Heart Condition
Improving Sudden Cardiac Arrest Survival
Why Women Are Less Likely to Receive Lifesaving CPR
Using Creativity to Create Meaningful Impact
Using Social Media on Your Own Terms and for a Greater Purpose
Running a Million-Dollar Nonprofit on a Thousand-Dollar Budget

Awards

Select Awards & Recognition

HeartCharged’s advocacy, educational work, and creative public-awareness campaigns have received recognition from organizations committed to cardiac health, resuscitation, patient advocacy, and community safety.

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Presidents Call to Service Lifetime Achievement Award

2025

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Social Health Awards

Best Team Category - 2024

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Global Heart Hub Unite Summit

Excellence Award - 2025

And many more!

Our Story Became Our Mission

Every Experience Became A Reason To Act

What happened to us shaped what we do for patients, families, schools, and communities.

Diagnosis led to impact

We underwent heart screening and learned that we both had severe HCM.

We helped start an initiative through which more than 25,000 students have received free heart screenings.

A family diagnosis changed our future

Our aunt told us when she was diagnosed with HCM. Because the condition can run in families, her diagnosis led us to learn more about our own hearts.

We began sharing the importance of knowing and discussing your family medical history.

We learned our warning signs had been missed

Looking back, we realized that we had experienced warning signs and reported symptoms that were not recognized as signs of a serious heart condition.

We created large-scale social-media campaigns about warning signs, reaching more than six million people.

We became “bionic”

As our conditions progressed, we received implanted cardioverter defibrillators designed to shock our hearts back into rhythm when needed.

We began helping other patients prepare for and recover from their own procedures.

Hannah survived sudden cardiac arrest

Hannah experienced sudden cardiac arrest and survived because her implanted defibrillator delivered lifesaving treatment.

We began sharing an unfiltered view of what a defibrillator shock looks and feels like—and what it means to live life “bionic.”

We learned that preparation saves lives

The more we understood about sudden cardiac arrest, the more we recognized the importance of immediate CPR and access to an AED.

We became CPR and AED instructors. We have taught more than 1,000 people in person and reached more than 100,000 through educational videos. Someone we trained later used those skills to help save their own child.

We saw that young people can become lifesavers

We heard stories of children participating in resuscitation efforts and understood that lifesaving education does not have to begin in adulthood.

We heard stories of children participating in resuscitation efforts and understood that lifesaving education does not have to begin in adulthood.

We discovered an inequity in resuscitation

While teaching CPR and AED use, we learned that women are less likely to receive lifesaving assistance during a cardiac emergency.

We created an international awareness campaign and art exhibition to confront the barriers that prevent women from receiving CPR.

We encountered AEDs that could not be reached

We heard heartbreaking stories about people who knew an AED was nearby but could not access it during an emergency because it was locked away.

We shared those stories, advocated for publicly accessible AEDs, and helped donate dozens of devices.

We brought the issue to schools and lawmakers

We learned how profoundly sudden cardiac arrest affects students and school communities.

We helped support crucial legislation, educated school communities, and continued writing and speaking about cardiac emergency preparedness.

We stood beside friends awaiting transplants

We watched friends endure the uncertainty and difficulty of needing an organ transplant.

We advocated alongside them for organ donation and greater awareness.

We came to understand invisible disability

As our symptoms worsened and our limitations increased, we recognized that we were living with an invisible disability.

We joined other disability advocates working to improve understanding, access, and policy.

Patients asked us to keep showing the truth

Young patients and their parents told us that seeing the unfiltered reality of our lives helped them feel represented and less alone.

We kept sharing it.

We continue to live with the scars

We live with physical scars, emotional scars, and the mental-health challenges of facing serious heart disease in our twenties.

We continue to speak openly and participate in campaigns addressing the emotional realities of chronic illness.

and our story and mission will continue to grow...

Help support our mission