By: Baylee Pulliam

ANDERSON, Ind. — Drew Brantley was dead for at least four minutes the first time his heart stopped. He collapsed on the floor during a basketball game at his high school in Kokomo.

“I was a three-sport athlete in pretty good shape, physically,” said Brantley, now a 20-year-old sophomore at Anderson University. “If it could happen to me, it could happen to anybody.”

Brantley survived with four jolts from his school’s Automated External Defibrillator, or AED. It was the first of three times he’s needed the device. Now, he uses the story to teach about the importance of AEDs.

The devices "speak for themselves through me,” he said. “I got lucky there was one around, but they need to be everywhere.”

Brantley works with organizations such as Indiana University Health and Boston Scientific, which makes the Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator that keeps his heart beating from inside his body.

“That first time, I had a pretty low chance of surviving, like 40 percent,” he said. “And that’s with an AED. If there wasn’t one, it would have been zero.”

The sudden cardiac arrest he suffered isn’t a heart attack, which happens when a blockage stops blood from getting to the heart muscle. Rather, the heart just stops, abruptly and without warning.

The condition causes more than 325,000 deaths per year, according to the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association, and can strike regardless of age, race, gender or physical condition. When it happens, defibrillation is often the “single most important factor affecting survival,” according to the association.

AED machines send electric shocks to the heart to restore its natural rhythm. The devices are usually stored in red-and-white, wall-mounted boxes, which are the first things Brantley notices when he enters a room.

"A lot of gyms don’t have them. A lot of churches don’t have them,” he said. “They need to be everywhere.”

The machines aren't cheap. A single AED can cost $1,200 to $1,400.

“But it’s worth it,” he said. “They can save lives.”

Brantley also campaigns to encourage people to learn how to use the devices.

“They’re pretty simple, and there’s a little instruction book in the kit,” he said. “But training is like four hours, one time.”

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Baylee Pulliam is a reporter for The Herald Bulletin in Anderson, Ind.