OUR MISSION
ENDING PREVENTABLE DEATHS FROM SUDDEN CARDIAC ARREST AND UNDIAGNOSED HEART CONDITIONS AND PROVIDING PATIENT-TO-PATIENT SUPPORT.
We, Bethany & Hannah, are sisters and young women who were unexpectedly diagnosed in our teens with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a chronic and deadly heart condition.
Our work through HeartCharged goes hand-in-hand with our journey into surviving, understanding, and determining to change the survival rates and quality of life for others.
Our aunt told us when she was diagnosed with HCM.
We share about the importance of family medical history.
We went for a screening that showed we had severe HCM.
We started an initiative through which 25K+ students have received free screenings.
Our doctor didn’t know how Hannah had survived to diagnosis as she is extremely active and has the #1 killer of student athletes.
We speak in schools and beyond about the importance of screenings and warning signs.
We realize we had warning signs which we reported to our doctor but those symptoms were ignored, as they are for many, many people.
We do massive social media campaigns on warning signs reaching 6M+.
We get implanted defibrillators (ICDs) to shock us back to life as needed.
We help others through their surgeries.
Hannah survives sudden cardiac arrest due to defibrillation.
We share what a shock looks and feels like and present a raw representation of life bionic.
We now understand that sudden cardiac death, which kills as many people as Covid did in its worst year, is very preventable.
We reach millions through social media messaging, assemblies, podcasts, and simple conversations.
Knowing that AED use and CPR can change sudden cardiac arrest survival rates from 9% towards 90%, we become CPR/AED instructors.
We teach 1K+ CPR and AED use in person and 100K+ through videos, even winning the resuscitation video contest, and have one of our students save their child’s life.
We hear how young children have helped in resuscitation efforts.
We gear messaging to younger people, hold classes for young people, and present even at elementary schools and one of our students uses their training when their classmate’s life is in peril.
In teaching CPR and AED use, we discover women are 1.5 times less likely to be resuscitated.
We create a huge international awareness campaign and even an international art exhibition.
We hear heart-breaking stories of people who could have saved someone with a defibrillator but it was locked up.
We share those stories and start working on publicly-accessible AEDs as we donate dozens of AEDs.
We are shocked to discover sudden cardiac arrest is the #1 killer on school campuses.
We help pass crucial legislation addressing this and write more.
We watch our friends go through needed transplants.
We advocate alongside them for organ donations.
Our symptoms worsen and our limitations increase and we realize that we live with an invisible disability.
We join with our fellow disability advocates in bettering the situation for all and working on crucial legislation.
Young patients’ parents and patients themselves thank us for showing our raw realities.
We keep doing it.
We continue living with physical and mental scars and the mental health challenges of living with death looming in our twenties.
We speak out and join in with a number of international campaigns addressing this.