By Kevin Murphy
Special to NKyTribune
“I’m sorry. Your son has passed away.” These are the words Matt Mangine heard in the emergency room when his 16-year-old son, Matthew, lost his life to a sudden cardiac arrest on June 16, 2020, at a high school soccer practice.
There were five Automated External Defibrillators (AED) on campus, but none were brought to Matthew until the EMTs came. By then it was too late.
Matt then had to walk to the waiting room to break the news to his wife Kim that their first-born son was gone. There is nothing worse in life than losing a child. Nothing. Every parent would trade his or her life to save their child.
What happened next was disbelief, profound grief, despair, and anger. In addition, they had their youngest son, Joseph, who at age 11 was also grieving. Every night at dinner, all would see the empty chair where Matthew sat. All three had to pass his bedroom at night.
To prevent grief and despair from consuming them individually, and as a couple, Matt and Kim decided that the best way to keep Matthew’s name and legacy alive was to help others avoid a similar fate. And thus, the Matthew Mangine Jr. One Shot Foundation was born. The original purpose or goal of the foundation was to raise money to provide AEDs to schools and youth athletic programs that did not have one. You would be shocked to find out how many schools do not have an AED.
In the first few months of the Foundation’s existence, the Mangines discovered some terrible statistics, making the Foundation expand its original mission of simply providing AEDs.
They learned that one high school kid dies every 3.5 days in the United States of sudden cardiac arrest. It happens everywhere — in schools, in malls, on plane flights. And the survival rate for sudden cardiac arrest in the U.S.? 10 percent, the same percentage it was 20 years ago, which is sickening. Why? Because so many bystanders are afraid to get involved during the critical moments with CPR or using an AED. This is tragic, because whether you are 8 years old or 80, if you have a sudden cardiac arrest and are hit with an AED in the first three minutes, you have an 89.6 percent chance of survival. These numbers and percentages came from decades of research.
Thus, the Mangines realized that so many people were dying that could have been saved. This led them to the Take 10 training.
The Take 10 program started in Texas and was brought to the greater Cincinnati area by the University of Cincinnati Emergency Medicine Department. This was the same team that saved Damar Hamlin’s life when he had a sudden cardiac arrest in a game against the Bengals.
The Mangine Foundation began working with UC in 2021 to raise awareness and to get people over the fear to give CPR and to utilize an AED. Using an AED is as simple as pressing a button. It talks to you! It gives step by step instructions. So now, when a principal asks for an AED from the Foundation, Matt, a rather imposing gentle giant, strongly suggests that the faculty, staff, students, and coaches gather in the gym for a Take 10 training. Several students and faculty are brought to the gym floor to actually give CPR to life-sized mannequins, and they learn just how easy it is to use an AED.
Not long ago, both Kim and Matt gave a Take 10 training at a Columbus high school. The athletic director recently told the Mangines that not only was a teacher saved in the school, but the girls soccer coach saved a man in a restaurant with CPR. How good is that!
I hope that coach who gave that man CPR realizes that he spared an entire family from terrible grief.
The Mangines are getting AED requests from all over the country. The Foundation has now distributed 170 AEDs.
To learn more about the Mangines and their story, please go on YouTube.com and type in the search bar ESPN Mangine. You can find their website at www.oneshot.life.com. The YouTube video is also accessible there.
I hope you will support this wonderful mission by sending a contribution to P.O. Box 30, Union, Kentucky 41091.
Kevin Murphy is an attorney with Murphy Landen and Jones in Fort Mitchell and is a long-time resident of Northern Kentucky.