{"id":1302,"date":"2019-02-19T22:18:53","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T22:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/?p=1302"},"modified":"2019-02-19T22:18:53","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T22:18:53","slug":"teens-sudden-death-sparks-foundation-heart-education-effort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/?p=1302","title":{"rendered":"Teen’s sudden death sparks foundation, heart education effort"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fourteen-year-old Alyssa Dressler babysat her two younger brothers while making final preparations to participate in the Youth World Barrel Race Championships in Georgia two days later.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary for the extremely active and social Selinsgrove ninth-grader on that Tuesday \u2014 July 14, 2015 \u2014 when chaos came in the form of an undiagnosed heart issue. Dressler died suddenly of cardiomyopathy, leaving behind a group of family and friends who have struggled to pick up the pieces ever since.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe now call every Tuesday \u2018Terrible Tuesday,\u2019\u201d said Tammie Gallo, Dressler\u2019s grandmother. \u201cPeople think you should just get over it \u2014 but this is something you just can\u2019t get over. Everything changed that day for all of us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Julie Ranck, Gallo\u2019s sister and Dressler\u2019s great-aunt, agreed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAlyssa was a beautiful little girl \u2014 a typical spirited teenager that liked to be on her phone and loved taking pictures. She had this ability to take simple objects and make it look very special in a picture,\u201d Ranck said. \u201cEverybody misses her \u2014 and we searched for a way to keep her memory alive while helping make a difference for other families.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That initiative resulted a year ago in the founding of the Alyssa Dressler Foundation \u2014 a nonprofit founded on Feb. 1, 2018, with the goal of educating the public about heart conditions in young people and providing screenings to help find potential issues that would otherwise go undiagnosed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEvery three days, someone dies from sudden cardiac arrest, and some of those people had no idea anything was wrong until it was too late,\u201d Gallo said. \u201cIt is the leading killer for student-athletes \u2014 one out of every 100 kids are found to have previously undiscovered heart conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a year of fundraising and participation in a variety of community events including the Snyder County Night Out, Boscov\u2019s Friend and Family night and a recent health fair at the Susquehanna Valley Mall, the Alyssa Dressler Foundation is hosting the first of what it hopes becomes a twice-a-year free student heart screening clinic.<\/p>\n

The screening will be held Saturday, Feb. 23, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Selinsgrove High School and is open to any student in central Pennsylvania ages 12-19 not already under the care of a cardiologist. Those who participate will receive a free vitals check and electrocardiogram \u2014 for students whose results indicate the need for additional testing, an echocardiogram will be provided on site for free.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe average number of kids at screenings like this that need additional testing is usually 10-12 percent,\u201d Ranck said. \u201cWe are hoping to screen around 150 students, and we encourage them and their parents to join in. They will be given some CPR and AED education and other information will be provided.\u201d<\/p>\n

Appointments are required for the event and can be arranged at the foundation website, www.alyssadressler.org.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are partnering with Evangelical and Geisinger and are so thankful for the medical staff that will be on hand and volunteering their own time,\u201d Ranck said.<\/p>\n

Over its first year, the foundation has raised money to purchase two AED machines \u2014 donating them to the Selinsgrove REC center and the East Snyder Park in Penn Township.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s primary fundraiser is a memorial barrel race at the stable where Dressler trained \u2014 JK&L Stables near Middleburg.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe community gets involved \u2014 we receive donated items for a raffle and family and friends donate stuff for the food stand,\u201d said Gallo. \u201cAll proceeds go to the foundation and its efforts to educate the public about heart issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

The efforts of the Alyssa Dressler Foundation have helped smooth off the rough edges of a terrible tragedy for Gallo, but the pain of loss is still there for Gallo and the family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if it gets any easier, but some days it seems to help,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of people have been touched by the story and you never know what sort of impact you can have until you start a conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what this foundation is doing \u2014 starting conversations, educating people locally and hopefully we can do something to help another family not have to experience the heartache we have since that Tuesday several years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information about Alyssa Dressler and the foundation, visit www.alyssadressler.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fourteen-year-old Alyssa Dressler babysat her two younger brothers while making final preparations to participate in the Youth World Barrel Race<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[959],"tags":[981,984,985,976,983,982],"class_list":["post-1302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-alyssa-dressler","tag-condition","tag-evangelical","tag-geisinger","tag-heart","tag-sudden-death"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1304,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions\/1304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}