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Overcast New state law aims to protect student athletes
New law’s focus is sudden cardiac arrest
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation sponsored by State Sen. Jim Gaughran into law on Oct. 25, which is intended to reduce the occurrence of sudden cardiac arrest in student athletes. Under the new law, New York state will establish rules for the monitoring and treatment of students who show signs or symptoms of potentially fatal cardiac problems.
The legislation, Senate Bill S1016-B, is known informally as Dominic’s Law, and is named for Dominic Murray, a 17-year-old who collapsed and died on a Farmingdale State College basketball court in 2009.
“This [law] sets up parameters to make sure that people understand what to look for in a potential sudden-death situation, so everybody is always on guard,” Gaughran said. “Athletes themselves and their parents will have more knowledge as well. Hopefully, what will happen is, if somebody begins exhibiting the signs of sudden cardiac arrest, then the [proper] precautions will be taken and that person can get immediate help … because those around them will know what to look out for in identifying cardiac arrest.”
When the law goes into effect next July, information on those signs and symptoms will be posted on the state Department of Health website. In addition, schools will be required to include the information on permission forms or similar paperwork that students may be required to fill out in order to take part in interscholastic athletics.
Oyster Bay-East Norwich School District Superintendent Dr. Francesco Ianni declined to comment on the legislation.
“We are hopeful that, by creating more awareness around the state of this serious medical issue, lives will be saved,” Gaughran said.
Twelve years ago, the seemingly healthy Murray, playing in a pickup game at Farmingdale State, shot a routine layup, took three steps and collapsed. He had no pulse and was unresponsive, and soon he was gasping, gurgling and making seizure-like movements. His symptoms of sudden cardiac arrest went unrecognized by all around him, and by the time help arrived, he was dead. His father had died of a heart attack three years earlier, at age 42.
According to the American Heart Association, every minute counts in the effort to save the life of someone who goes into cardiac arrest. Immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, is crucial, and if the symptoms go unnoticed, the chance of survival drops dramatically.
Murray’s mother, Melinda Murray-Nyack, has advocated for increased awareness of sudden cardiac arrest for over a decade, educating school officials and the public on the warning signs.
“I really want to thank Mrs. Murray, Dominic’s mother,” Gaughran said. “She and other advocates really pushed and tried hard for years to get this done before I was elected to the Legislature, in memory of her son and in memory of other children. We’re very grateful for their advocacy.”
Murray-Nyack is the founder and president of the Dominic A. Murray 21 Memorial Foundation (DomHeart21), which aims to promote awareness of, and the knowledge to treat, sudden cardiac arrest through education and legislation. As a widow and a parent who lost her only child to the disorder, she made it her life’s mission to prevent other families from suffering a similar loss due to a lack of awareness of a preventable tragedy.
“The real tragedy is these deaths can be prevented,” Murray-Nyack said. “Primary prevention, which is the goal of Dominic’s Law, plays an indispensable role in helping to reduce this crisis. I am so grateful to Senator Gaughran for recognizing the importance of this life-saving legislation and ensuring the hearts of students in New York state are protected.”
Sudden cardiac arrest is the No. 1 cause of death among student athletes, and the leading cause of death on school campuses. There are more than 356,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests annually in the U.S., and nearly 90 percent of them are fatal. No one was aware that Murray suffered from a congenital-heart defect that went undetected by conventional medical clearance methods.
DomHeart21 provides training in CPR and the use of automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, for free. According to a report from the American Heart Association published in March 2020, the median annual rate for CPR training in the U.S. was just 2.39 percent of the nation’s population.
