Assemblyman Joseph Cryan says "YES"!

Yesterday, the JTB Club and the John Taylor Babbitt Foundation met with Assemblyman Joseph Cryan to ask for his sponsorship of the Assembly version of S3131.  The current law requires that the owner of an AED (automated emergency defibrillator) ensures that only persons holding current certification may use the AED in the event of an emergency.  There is currently a federal law and 41 states who have already issued an amendment to the Good Samaritan Law.  New Jersey is not one of these states.

This is an outdated law because the technology has advanced to the point that the use of an AED, according to recent studies, can even be safely used by an untrained sixth grader!  For every minute that an AED is not used on a victim of sudden cardiac arrest, that person's chance of survival goes down by 7-10%.  In the past year, there have been five reported deaths of young people in New Jersey because there was no AED available on site.  Four years ago, one of our own student's brothers died from an unexpected cardiac arrest on a school basketball court. No AED was available.

The meeting concluded with Assemblyman Cryan agreeing to sponsor the Assembly version of S3131!  he said, "There is no reason in good faith that this should not be done... it is an opportunity to save a life... important to a legacy (of the people whom we love whose lives have been lost)..." 

Assemblyman Cryan said he would make this one his most important top three priorities in the new year.  Thank you Assemblyman Cryan.  Merry Christmas!