Grand Rapids — The delivery of potentially life-saving devices to two Grand Rapids high schools had student-athletes saying, “It’s a good day to be a Bengal, baby.”
So intoned members of the Ottawa Hills football team as they were given an automated external defibrillator (AED) during a gathering at Houseman Field last week. It was a good day to be a Red Hawk, too, as Union High School also received an AED.
State Reps. Carol Glanville, D-Walker, and Kristian Grant, D-Grand Rapids, delivered the devices, which are among many donated to Michigan schools by the NFL in partnership with the state Legislature. The partnership was spearheaded by Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin, who experienced a cardiac arrest during an NFL game in 2023. Hamlin announced the donations in April, when he was in Detroit for the draft, as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation to require AEDs and CPR training in schools.
‘Anyone who happens to be at the school or at an event will benefit from this.’
— State Rep. Carol Glanville
What came from a personal place for Hamlin resonated on a personal level with Ottawa Hills senior and football player Micah Mcconer, who’s starting his fourth year on the field.
“It means a lot,” Micah said, “because I struggled with heart problems. I used to have a hole in my heart, and it got healed, thank our Lord God. But this means a lot because some people are battling stuff they don’t tell people about.”
Micah said he was unaware of his condition until he was in eighth grade, and that the AEDs could help someone like him.
“That’s really a blessing,” he said.
Help For Anyone
Glanville, Grant and GRPS Superintendent Leadriane Roby each gave remarks at the gathering to present the AEDs.
“I’m thrilled that this is coming to … GRPS, where resources are always welcome — in particular, resources that don’t just benefit the kids but the community,” Glanville, a former GRPS educator, told SNN after the event. “Anyone who happens to be at the school or at an event will benefit from this.”
Grant, who graduated from Ottawa Hills and served on the district’s Board of Education, said she knows from her experience at the school just how great the need is for this kind of on-site assistance.
“I remember vividly having a friend who was a basketball player, and in the middle of a game he fell out and nobody knew what was wrong with him,” Grant told SNN. “He had an undetected health condition. It’s for those precise moments that these AED units are so important. … It’s for that moment we can’t plan for.”
Grant added that AEDs dramatically increase the survival rate for people who suffer cardiac arrests.
“I’m so happy that the NFL decided to partner with the Michigan state Legislature to get these units out around the state,” she said.
Roby expressed gratitude to the NFL, the Legislature and to Glanville and Grant specifically, “for their advocacy and support to make sure that GRPS is one of the first schools to receive these devices.”
“This is a potentially life-changing situation for not only our athletes but our broader community,” Roby said. “It’s important that we have those emergency devices on-site because we’ve seen … that young people are also able to get sick or have some unknown condition, and in the midst of an emergency, that’s not the time to be like, ‘What do we do?’”
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