Pictured above: Training the community on Bystander CPR and AED.
During a cardiac emergency, each passing second could mean the difference between life and death. No one knows that better than Jude Maboné.
The reigning Miss District of Columbia suffered her first heart attack while on a six-mile run when she was just 16 years old. She would ultimately experience five more heart attacks over the following two years before her condition was properly diagnosed and treated.
“Sudden cardiac arrest is the number one killer of student-athletes. Having been a student-athlete myself, I wanted to find a way to help protect other people,” says the former cross country and college track athlete.
A video on MedStar Health social media featured an educational campaign launched to address racial and gender disparities in individuals who receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) from a bystander. It caught her attention. “When a friend showed me a video of MedStar Health physicians teaching CPR with local athletes, I knew I wanted to get involved.”
That’s why, when she earned her title in 2023, she wanted to use her platform with the Miss America organization to highlight the importance of CPR during a cardiac arrest, and how easy it is for bystanders to administer it.
A 2022 study by the American College of Cardiology revealed that women and Black and Hispanic adults are least likely to receive CPR during a cardiac event outside of a hospital.
“We want to address what’s really preventing people from performing CPR in our communities,” says MedStar Health critical care physician David Gordon, MD. “Are they worried about hurting someone? Are they scared they might do it wrong? Are they concerned about legal action? All of those fears are addressed in these videos.”
In addition to showing proper CPR techniques and how to use an automated external defibrillator (AED), the three-minute videos remind viewers that Good Samaritan laws are in place to protect bystanders who try to help people in distress.
To help deliver the lifesaving message, MedStar Health turned to athletes from the Washington Capitals, Washington Mystics, Washington Wizards, and Georgetown Women’s Soccer teams.
“Seeing athletes perform CPR and use an AED in the videos shows that you do not need a medical background to do it,” says Dr. Gordon, who appears in a video with Julia Leas, an Athletic and Academic All-American with Georgetown Women’s Soccer. “Everything you need to know to perform bystander CPR is in the videos—there’s no need to take a CPR class.”
To expand the audiences these videos could reach, Maboné offered to leverage her knowledge of American Sign Language (ASL) to create an additional video for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. The video features athletes from Gallaudet University, the world’s only liberal arts university for deaf, deafblind and hard-of-hearing students.
“The more than 20,000 Washingtonians who use ASL as their primary form of communication deserve to have this information made accessible to them in their own language,” says Maboné, who learned ASL to communicate with her childhood best friend. “I’m glad MedStar Health saw the value in making the videos as accessible and inclusive as possible.”
In addition to showing the videos online and in MedStar Health hospitals, clinics and other facilities, Dr. Gordon says he hopes to get local sports teams to play the videos on the jumbotron during large sporting events.
“These are skills that hopefully you will never have to use,” he says. “But, if necessary, you can change a life—and save a life.”
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