‘Who We Play For’ to Perform ECG Heart Screenings at 4EverYoung Merritt Island Saturday, Register Today
By Space Coast Daily // February 3, 2023
ECG Heart Screenings for both youth and adults
WATCH: Who We Play For will perform ECG Heart Screenings for both youth and adults at 4EVER YOUNG Anti-Aging Solutions on Merritt Island on Saturday, February 4, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon.
Related Story:Fitness Club Merritt Island’s AED, Quick-Thinking Staff and Members Save ‘Big Frank’ Buzzo’s Life
ABOVE VIDEO: Friday Night Locker Room’s Steve Wilson talked with Shawn Sima of Who We Play For, who discussed the recent legislation passed in Tallahassee pertaining to heart screenings.
BREVARD COUNTY • MERRITT ISLAND, FLORIDA – Who We Play For will perform ECG Heart Screenings for both youth and adults at 4EVER YOUNG Anti-Aging Solutions on Merritt Island on Saturday, February 4, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon.
Denise and Lou Manley, co-owners of 4EVER YOUNG Anti-Aging Solutions on Merritt Island, have opened their exciting new facility in The Shoppes Of Victoria Square at 1450 N. Courtenay Parkway that will focus on helping you feel and look your best.
The heart screenings are available to all Space Coast residents.
■ CLICK HERE to sign up for the youth sign-up.
■ CLICK HERE for the adult sign-up.
For more information, visit 4EVER YOUNG Anti-Aging Solutions on Merritt Island
In an edition of “Sit Down with Steve,” the Friday Night Locker Room’s Steve Wilson sat down with Shawn Sima to talk about recent legislation passed in Tallahassee pertaining to heart screenings. You can watch the video interview above.
Sima spoke about an event that changed his life forever and now plays a big role in Who We Play For and the importance of awareness of sudden cardiac arrest, especially in our youth.
During the programming, Sima goes over the significance of learning CPR and how to use an AED device.
ABOUT WHO WE PLAY FOR
The story of Who We Play For began November 30, 2007, on the goal line of a Cocoa Beach High School soccer field, where Rafe Maccarone went into sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) following a warm-up routine before the beginning of practice.
The next day, December 1, 2007, Rafe passed away, and we would later learn the condition that caused his cardiac arrest was called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). Our community was rocked by the reality that a seemingly healthy and active 15-year-old, who passed all his sports physicals, could die from heart disease while playing the sport he loved most.
An even more shocking reality we faced was that not only was Rafe’s condition detectable, and in fact the leading cause of SCA in sports, but there were also several countries that long ago recognized SCA in youth as an immense public health issue that it is an established screening protocol to identify these children at risk before they take the sports field.
Those efforts abroad, in countries such as Italy, have reduced the incidence of sudden cardiac arrest by 89%.
This was a reality that our community refused to accept for our students, so in 2014 we established WWPF as a 501 c3 and began partnering with schools across the state of Florida.
Six other states provide affordable ECG screenings for their students.
“Our goal has always been to show the country that not only is it imperative, but it is also possible to deliver affordable ECG screenings to every child no matter their level of athletics, socio-economic status, or geographical location,” said Sima.
To date, WWPF has screened hundreds of thousands of people in over 300 communities across seven states.
“We have identified 76 individuals that needed some level of medical intervention, including heart transplants, and hundreds of others with abnormalities that can now be monitored,” said Sima.
The soul of WWPF has always been to represent the thousands of children each year, like Rafe, that suffer sudden cardiac arrest from detectable heart conditions and the communities left to find a solution in the wake of these tragedies.
“Each community we have served and will serve in the future has been impacted by SCA in some way, and their stories help strengthen our mission to eliminate preventable sudden cardiac deaths in youth,” said Sima.
