Community News

Fundraiser nets $13K for church AEDs

Action taken after Valley Stream man died in Blessed Sacrament last year

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Friends and family of Henry Andresen, a Valley Stream resident who died in Blessed Sacrament Church last year, held a fundraiser at Eisenhower Park on March 19 to raise money to fund and distribute defibrillators to local churches who don’t currently have them.

“It’s something he would do, because he was always doing stuff for people,” said Andreson’s daughter, Kerry Boring, of Bablyon. “Everybody in my community knew him. It’s just the type of person he was.”

Andresen, 75, suffered a heart attack in the church in February 2015, which caused a few churches in neighboring communities to purchase automated external defibrillators (AEDs). Defibrillators deliver an electrical current to the heart through the victim’s chest wall, which interrupts the chaotic rhythm and allows the heartbeat to return to normal. The machines have about a 90 percent success rate, and for each minute that defibrillation is delayed the chance for survival is reduced by about 10 percent.

“You never really think about it until you really need it,” said Jim O’Brien, a maintenance employee at St. Boniface Church in Elmont. “A lot of people don’t really know that much about it.”

O’Brien, a close friend of Andresen’s, attended the fundraiser on March 19 and said it was a lot of fun. “Hank was a great guy,” he said. “He had a heart of gold and loved the church.”

After Andresen’s death, O’Brien took a CPR course and recommended that the Elmont church purchase a defibrillator. He has since learned how to use it properly, and said it is easy to operate.

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