‘Wear Red for Women’ Donates AED to Indoor Baseball Training Facility

Wear Red for Women, a Bothwell Foundation committee, recently gave an automated external defibrillator (AED) to McDonald’s Indoor Baseball Training Facility at 3604 S. Grand in Sedalia.

An AED is a small, lightweight device that allows individuals and first responders to treat sudden cardiac arrest. The machine automatically analyzes the heart rhythm and when appropriate, it delivers an electrical shock to the heart to restore its normal rhythm.

Sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death for student-athletes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 2,000 young, seemingly healthy people under the age of 25 die each year of sudden cardiac arrest in the United States.

Funds to purchase the device were raised during the 2023 Wear Red for Women luncheon and auction. The committee’s goal is to have AEDs in every place people work, learn, play or pray in Sedalia and Pettis County. Since the inception of the luncheon event in 2020, 72 AEDs have been placed in or committed to various locations. The 2024 Wear Red for Women event is Feb. 23, 2024, and tickets will be available in January.

From left, Trish Henson and Erica Petersen; committee members; Lauren Thiel-Payne, Bothwell Foundation executive director; Chuck Marshall, McDonald’s owner/operator; and Robin Balke, committee member.