The installation of donated life-saving outdoor automated external defibrillator equipment will be celebrated in two Pittsburgh and five regional parks this weekend. But those events make up just one part of this story. The people behind those donations are the heart of it.
First, a New Jersey woman who nearly died at 43 from a sudden cardiac arrest at Echo Lake Park in 2021 created the foundation that enabled the purchase of the all-weather devices. A bystander who performed CPR until paramedics arrived with an AED saved her. Jill A. Pall founded the Aliver Foundation three years later with deep gratitude and concern for others who share her love of parks and outdoor activities.
Second, a family funding six of those devices in their late mother’s name found Pall’s nonprofit on Facebook and donated the needed funds because her grandson experienced a sudden cardiac arrest, too, in 2021. He collapsed while doing yard work at his Adams home. His mom and her husband began CPR, and emergency medical staff performed lifesaving defibrillation with an AED to bring him back to life.
Pall’s foundation has been directly responsible for installing 115 AED devices, mainly in New Jersey, New York and now Pennsylvania. A fundraising and development professional for most of her career, Pall has used her talents and drive to raise awareness of the need for the devices, educate people about the differences between sudden cardiac arrests and heart attacks, and promote CPR and AED certification and usage. Her nonprofit also provides resources and support to survivors and their loved ones.
Her prior work at New York’s Central Park Conservancy led her to the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy last December. She reached out to Hersh Merenstein, its director of institutional relations. He said he didn’t know outdoor AEDs existed until he spoke with her.
Three devices have been installed in Mellon Park, Schenley Plaza and the Schenley Oval. They feature a CE TEK 4000 Outdoor AED Enclosure paired with a Heartsine Samaritan 350P, equipment that can help save lives in the critical first moments of a cardiac emergency, according to a conservancy news release.
The enclosure provides heat to protect the AED from the outdoor elements in cold weather and keep the AED at a safe working temperature. The Samaritan PAD 350P AED kit has paddles, a carrying case and a user manual. The package has a fair market value of $2,480.
“They will work in any weather,” Merenstein said. The Pittsburgh Public Works staff hooked them up to electricity and heat near a rest room at each park in January.
The conservancy selected those locations because of high use at each one, he said. Many people frequent Schenley Oval for recreation, and because much of that happens at night, the ice rink that already has an AED might not be open then for the needed fast access and use. Thousands of people pass through Schenley Plaza. Mellon Park’s tennis bubble is open late, and its schedule includes many evening games.
Park rangers have told him about cardiac incidents at city parks, including one at Schenley Oval. The rangers had to run to the ice rink and grab the AED there as they notified city EMS of the emergency to help a visitor.
The devices are protected against tampering and theft because bystanders need to call 911 and obtain a code to get to the device, Merenstein explained. They can then render aid until an EMS crew arrives at the scene. The machines narrate to the user how to activate and use the device, walking them through the process step by step once it is opened.
Each device is marked with a yellow sign, but that’s not the only way bystanders can find out where they are. The AEDs have been added to Pittsburgh and Allegheny County’s PULSE Point app that was launched in 2016 during the Peduto administration, Merenstein said. It connects users to the 911 system that can immediately inform them of emergencies occurring. Anyone connected to the app – it reaches out a quarter mile in radius – can come and help start CPR and activate the AED.
This complements other pushes by the city and health care providers for more residents to become CPR certified and learn more about heart health, he said.
The conservancy recognized key statistics in announcing the celebrations about the need for the devices. Sudden cardiac arrest affects nearly 360,000 people outside of hospitals each year in the U.S., and fewer than 10% survive. Quick access to an AED and immediate CPR can double or triple survival rates.
“By placing these lifesaving tools in heavily used public parks, this initiative increases Pittsburgh’s emergency preparedness and reinforces the shared responsibility of caring for our community,” the release stated.
This is the first time the conservancy has worked with the Aliver Foundation, and Merenstein foresees future opportunities. “We hope to add more [in the parks], especially where we see a high number of visitors and visitation,” he said.
Overall Pittsburgh has 179 parks, and he estimates the conservancy is active in 30 of the parks in one way or another.
After realizing how few parks and recreational facilities had outdoor AEDs, Pall began her work by advocating for one in the park where she had her sudden cardiac arrest. It took a while because of issues with electricity, but last December, once the county secured grant funding, 80 devices were installed in 36 parks.
She discovered the devices she purchases through her foundation through research online. It led her to a United Kingdom manufacturing company offering them for a reasonable price and one that met the requirements that they be climate controlled, year-round devices.
“The cool thing about it is that it is hard wired to an electrical source,” she said. “[It’s] climate controlled, weatherproof and tamper proof. The other types, once those freeze, the keypads and batteries don’t work. They don’t have a heating device.”
The important step is calling 911 to get a code to begin with, and she explains bystanders helping a victim can get wrapped up in that work and forget to make that important call that dispatches first responders.
Her foundation — the name derived from a favorite song, “Riser,” written by Steve Moakler and Travis Meadows and recorded by country music artist Dierks Bentley — collects donations from individuals, groups, service organizations and companies to underwrite the AED costs.
Pall, who lacked resources and help as she recovered from her sudden cardiac arrest, offers virtual mental health counseling and peer-to-peer support for both survivors and their families because of what she experienced. “They become depressed,” she said. “That’s a very real thing.”
Like the conservancy, she also sees a need for more education on heart health, including disparities in treatment and response among men and women and minorities, and the need for more CPR and AED information and instruction.
She said she conveys all of this to many groups. Her foundation has a board of directors, an advisory council and teen ambassadors, and all – including her – donate their time and talents.
She works remotely as senior director of membership for the Partnership for Quality Medical Donations, based in Annapolis, Maryland, and said “95% of my time not working, I am working on this foundation.”
Individuals have given her anything from $5 to $2,500, with most coming from survivors, service organizations and businesses. Boy and Girl Scouts have taken on projects to raise money for the AED devices.
Pall’s plan is to keep going right now for about five years, then see how she can scale its work up. Right now she has added a first responder committee, and a goal would be to add that in more states along with her ongoing efforts. She just as received approval to fundraise in Pennsylvania. Devices have already ended up in Nebraska and California.
The Pittsburgh parks’ installations came about because of generosity of the McKeesport Hospital Foundation’s Marsha Bazylak Memorial Fund, which funded AEDs at Mellon Park and Schenley Plaza, according to the conservancy release, and Chris Bonzo, who underwrote the Schenley Oval installation in memory of his parents, Bob and Pat Bonzo. He donated funds for another one in Green Valley Park in Rochester, Beaver County.
The Bazylak family had created a memorial nursing scholarship in their mother’s memory when she died on March 31, 2017. She had worked as a McKeesport Hospital operating room nurse for 42 years. “Over the next eight years we delivered a total of $16,000 in scholarships to worthy students to follow their dreams to become a nurse and carry on our mom’s legacy,” her daughter Sue Svec wrote on her Facebook page.
Then Bazylak’s grandson Dante Colorito survived his sudden cardiac arrest in his Adams backyard. “Through the grace of God and skill of the rescuers, Dante survived,” she wrote. “Her daughter, Dante’s mother Patty, and her husband began CPR, and the EMS performed lifesaving defibrillation with an AED to bring him back to life. For this we are forever grateful.”
To show gratitude and honor their mother, the family decided to use the remaining scholarship fund money to purchase the six outdoor AEDs in partnership with the Aliver Foundation.
Dante is now 21, and his mother, Patty Weale, said prior to the sudden cardiac arrest he had no heart issues. “Even after his event and all of the testing, they found no reason and just gave electric anomaly as the only reason for it,” she wrote in an email.
Weale, her son and husband now volunteer as Aliver Foundation ambassadors.
The Bazylak family selected each location for the six AEDs for a special reason, Svec wrote on Facebook:
• Adams, the township where Patty, Mike and Dante live and the home of the rescue services and police that responded to Dante‘s event.
• Schenley Park, where our mom and dad would date when our mom was in nursing school at Montefiore School of Nursing.
• Mellon Park, the place where we take our grandkids to play.
• Renzie Park, our local park filled with family memories of polka dances, fireworks, International Village, and the Rose Garden that our Dziadzio (great-grandpap/great-great-grandpap) helped plant and maintain.
• White Oak Regional, the place where we had many birthdays, picnics and the park we continue to frequent for walks.
• Boyce Park, close to her grandsons’ home and a favorite of our grand pups.
“We are excited about the impact that this will have on our local communities in our mom’s honor.”
Pall worked with the conservancy to hold one-hour celebration events this Saturday and Sunday at the seven parks. At each a local elected official will speak, and first responders from the communities will meet and greet attendees and offer interactive CPR and AED demonstrations.
They also include several special children’s activities, Pall said. They can touch a truck, learn about calling 911 to summon the helpers and enjoy a stethoscope craft.
The children will color and draw on the cardboard stethoscope, then take them home. Best of all, Pall said, they can use them to listen to someone’s heartbeat.
The weekend schedule:
Saturday
10-11 a.m. — Adams Township Community Park, Butler County
12:45-1:45 p.m. — Mellon Park, Shadyside
3:30-4:30 p.m. — Schenley Plaza, Oakland
6:15-7:15 p.m. — Green Valley Park, Rochester
Sunday
10-11 a.m. — Boyce Park, Monroeville
12:15-1:15 p.m. — White Oak Park, White Oak
2:30-3:30 p.m. — Renziehausen Park, McKeesport
For more information on the Aliver Foundation and its work, visit https://www.thealiverfoundation.org/.
Helen is a copy editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but she's currently on strike. Contact her at hfallon@unionprogress.com.