Emergency department physicians and interventional cardiologists save hearts and lives every day at Tanner Health System’s accredited chest pain centers at Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton and Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica.

Unfortunately, sudden cardiac arrest — a condition in which the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating — often doesn’t occur in or near a hospital: Each year, more than 350,000 cases of cardiac arrest occur beyond the hospital walls, according to the American Heart Association, striking people enjoying a meal at a restaurant, attending a worship service, looking for a book at a local library, watching a sporting event at a park and otherwise leading their lives.

When sudden cardiac arrest strikes, ordinary citizens often step forward and save lives by performing CPR until help arrives or using an automated external defibrillator (AED), a portable device that checks heart rhythm and can send an electric shock to the heart to try to restore a normal rhythm.

Numerous local churches, businesses and organizations already have AEDs, but many do not. Tanner Heart Care hopes to change that for two local organizations, supplying ready access to a life-saving device with Tanner Heart Care’s Heart Saver AED Giveaway.

Organizations that would like to enter the giveaway are encouraged to designate an official submitter to visit www.tanner.org/AEDGiveaway, review the giveaway rules and complete the entry form by the deadline of April 1, 2019. Each organization may only enter once. Organizations must be headquartered in the Georgia counties of Carroll, Douglas, Haralson, Heard, Paulding or Polk, or the Alabama counties of Cleburne or Randolph.

Two organizations will be selected as winners by Tanner’s Chest Pain Committee by April 29, 2019, and each will receive an AED valued at approximately $2,000. Each of the two winning organizations must send five attendees to a Tanner CPR event in May or June 2019 to accept the AED.

To learn more about Tanner Heart Care, visit www.TannerHeartCare.org.