Sudden cardiac arrest is a silent killer of many young people.
It’s estimated that 7,000 to 10,000 children die every year from the heart abnormality.
One local organization has spent a decade raising awareness of the critical health issue.
After spending months on lockdown, the Nick of Time Foundation can once again provide free heart screenings for adolescents and young adults ages 14 to 24.
Typically, the foundation holds free heart screenings once a month at different school campuses across the Puget Sound region, but the pandemic put a pause on that.
Wednesday is the first time foundation organizers have been able to hold a screening in two years.
If anyone can convince someone of how important a cardiac screening really is, it would be Mill Creek mother Darla Varrenti.
“Nicki was my 16-year-old. He was the youngest of my four children. We didn’t realize that he had a heart condition and he had played in two football games over Labor Day Weekend, and he had a sudden cardiac arrest on Monday morning,” said Varrenti.
In the wake of her heartbreaking loss, Varentti learned that sports physicals don’t provide that kind of checks.
Seeing a need, she founded Nick of Time.
“Somebody says Nicki’s name every day, so it keeps his memory alive and what better way to have his legacy than to save other kids’ lives,” Varrenti said.
In over a decade of service, nearly 27,000 children have been screened. Of those, 600 have been referred for follow-ups.
“And of that, 170 have had procedures and things done like open-heart surgery,” Varrenti said.
When he’s not serving as the team physician for the Seahawks and Huskies, Dr. Johnathan Drezner visits schools such as Archbishop Murphy as the organization’s medical director.
“I’m very committed to making sure kids are safe to do what they love to do, which is to play sports,” Drezner said.
Drezner said the children who are screened will get an EKG which will be interpreted by sports medicine and cardiology physicians.
“And it just provides an advanced look underneath the hood about what their engine is about,” Drezner said.
On average, one cardiac abnormality is detected at each of the screening events.
“I wish every kid could get their heart checked, but we know until that time, until it’s a part of a wellness check or a sports physical, we’re going to be offering these screenings all over the Puget Sound area,” Varrenti said.
The next free screening will be at Holy Names Academy in Seattle on Feb. 2, 2022. You don’t have to be a student there to participate.
For more information, visit https://nickoftimefoundation.org.