Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to HeartCharged . We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
HeartCharged , appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
HeartCharged has as its mission to end preventable deaths from sudden cardiac arrest and create a community of support for survivors. Our most meaningful project so far utilized the support of survivors to create a completely innovative way to end preventable deaths. We created a music video!! That teaches how to use an AED!! And brings awareness to how sudden cardiac arrest can happen to anyone of any age anywhere. Super exciting is that the superstar we collaborated with for this music video is the international recording artist Greg Page, the Original Yellow Wiggle, who is a fellow sudden cardiac arrest survivor. Who else could convey through words and music in such a simple and catchy way what to do in a cardiac emergency and how to use an AED? (Note: An AED is an automated external defibrillator, the life-saving device used to shock a heart that has stopped back into sinus rhythm.) Greg’s song and message is AED – Hurry, Don’t Hesitate.
Greg provided the words and music and we were in charge of the rest. Bethany, a Dance Performance Major, put her choreography and dance skills to work and recruited 30 local dancers who volunteered to bring her vision to life. Hannah, a Film Major, recruited more generous and committed volunteers for the film crew and talent. Hannah directed and edited the video. The Orange County (Florida) Fire Rescue Department supported the project with 5 paramedics and a rescue truck. Ed Kosiec, another sudden cardiac arrest survivor and founder of Every Second Counts, came with his training equipment. Air Logic donated food for everyone. Yes, we conceptualized and storyboarded this piece, but our over 60 volunteers and key donors really made this project happen.
The result is an amazing video that has been entertaining and informing tens of thousands. It has been released in various versions. It is being used successfully in community CPR/AED trainings, helping students see and remember steps in using an AED. It is now being incorporated into our school assemblies which are already filled with audience participation including opportunities to get up and move.
Not only is AED: The Music Video an innovative way to advocate for sudden cardiac arrest survival awareness, it has already proven effective in the most crucial way. An elementary-school student attended a training with the video. Just weeks later, that student, a Do The Right Thing county-wide winner, did hurry and didn’t hesitate and immediately reacted to a medical emergency of another student in his school lunchroom.
What could make this better? How about a coloring and activity book which accompanies the video to reinforce the concepts? Thanks to Cailie and Shannon McClement, who donated their time and talents to create the artwork, and Endsley Eggert, who kindly did the graphics, that is a reality.
What could make this even more effective? You could help bring a HeartCharged assembly or training to your school, club, or community.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
We, Bethany and Hannah Keime, are the ones with the big hearts behind HeartCharged. Though we’d like to consider ourselves kind and giving, in this case by big hearts we mean hearts with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or an abnormal and dangerous thickening of the heart wall. We would honestly be dead by now without having had a heart screening when we were in high school which led to our diagnoses of this very deadly but often asymptomatic heart condition. Our chronic condition can’t be cured, but it is being managed with life-style changes (some severe), medications, and implanted defibrillators. In other words, we had to give up a number of things we enjoyed and are now bionic. Who we are drives the vibe of the content we create for HeartCharged. We definitely have a cohesive color scheme, and everything is mission-oriented. However, the posts themselves may be as big a surprise to you as Hannah got when her electrophysiologist told her she had been jolted back to life by her implanted defibrillator after going into sudden cardiac arrest in her sleep one night.
We know to affect people you have to quickly catch and cleverly keep their attention until you get your message across. We can do longer videos, but on @heartcharged , we keep things very bite-sized and extremely varied. You’ll find content about life after surviving death and the mental health issues that brings along. You’ll also find how-to’s, what’s-up’s, fun facts, not fun facts, ways to connect, and how to enact change. You’ll find we are rather quirky, have a great sense of humor, and love pop culture references. You’ll find our journey and meet the very cool friends we’ve met along the way. We find people are very moved by what we share and we know that by our high level of engagement and much unsolicited positive feedback.
As we go forward accomplishing even more, we would love any level of support. Please follow @heartcharged on Instagram. Like and share our content. Donations are needed. Advertising space is available. Private, business, club, and community support is so appreciated. Mention us to others. We do public speaking, podcasts and interviews, share life bionic as body-positivity models, provide CPR and AED trainings, help with AED acquisitions, put on school and group assemblies, and are glad to use our artistic skills in collaborations.
If you have your own organization or business, well, we do work beyond just HeartCharged. We are glad to talk about creating innovative ways to advocate for your own cause or share your product or services. Put our training, experience, and passion to work for you.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
We started our HeartCharged community with a post @heartcharged on Instagram which was this quote: One day you will tell your story about how you overcame that battle you went through, and God will send you the exact people who need to hear that story.” Our single original goal when we started the @heartcharged Instagram account was to share our personal journey as young people with an invisible disability. We wanted to share our journey, our joy, our grief, and our gratitude. We wanted to do it through social media to be able to reach people beyond our neighborhood. We wanted to do it in engaging ways that evoke emotions and inspire actions.
God sent us people to hear our story, but, more than that, He sent us people to share their story with us. We shared living with a bionic bump as a young person. Another young person debating a life-saving implant herself finally accepted the intervention after speaking with us and seeing us in real life. That was an original goal. Then when Hannah needed a medical intervention and had some slightly horrifying side-effects, we put up a post. 3,000 people from the HeartCharged community saw it within hours. That generated 112 comments, not just of sympathy, but with practical suggestions from actual patients. Hannah needed to hear those stories.
We want to continue to grow this community of shared support. To do so, we not only post about ourselves but about others in our HeartCharged community. We share resources. Our monthly virtual meet-ups are attended by international friends who had felt isolated by their conditions. We do in-person meet-ups. We distribute care packages to individuals and hospitals. We respond quickly and personally to messages.
We use our creativity and artistic skills to share in a way that captures people’s attention because if they don’t engage with the information, what good will it do? When you follow us @heartcharged , you will see short content that might make you laugh or cry, do both at the same time, count your blessings, or raise your voice. It might also help you save a life.
We have expanded our goals and are truly reaching them. We are letting people know there are many heart warriors among us. We are identifying ourselves to each other and becoming stronger as a result. We are working on ways to ensure there are more survivors as well. We welcome people helping us with any of our initiatives. We would especially appreciate help in ways to gather the heart community together in person.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Hannah’s Pivot: I pivoted from the life my mother promised me when I was a baby and she told me I could be anything I wanted. Through middle school, I was highly athletic and involved in competitive and magnet dance programs. Then just weeks into high school, I was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). 23,000 youth under age 18 die in the US yearly from sudden cardiac arrest, almost always from undiagnosed heart conditions of which HCM is generally the one. It can affect anyone and kill without warning and is also the number one killer of student athletes. There went sports, there went dance. In fact, I was further told to give up taking the stairs, watching scary movies, going in a hot tub, and a number of other things that could cause my heart rate to go up. I was only 14 at this point. Soon thereafter, I had to get an implanted defibrillator because my condition was so advanced. I turned to advocacy work to save other lives through early detection. I also filled the time I used to use playing sports and dancing with watching others, especially on TV and in movies, letting them live the adventures as I participated vicariously. I began acting and became Lead Thespian at my high school. I brought these passions together by giving Spoken Word presentations on heart screenings. Then the two parts of my life really came together when, while doing a lip-sync contest on my high-school stage, I actually went into sudden cardiac arrest and got shocked by my defibrillator.
After high school and serving a 17-month ecclesiastical mission, I continued blending my new passions. I attended Full Sail University and recently graduated with my Bachelor of Science in Film, receiving a number of accolades including top student in the major. I use what I’ve learned for our innovative HeartCharged advocacy work and look forward to doing so much more. My 14-year-old self never imagined this is what I’d be doing and definitely not why I’d be doing it, but my 23-year-old self is very grateful and extremely pleased with the pivot.
Bethany’s Pivot: I graduated college with a BFA in Dance, Performance. That means I lived most of my life in a leotard. The purpose of the leotard is to cover the dancer’s body while clinging to the skin so the musculature can be seen. For that reason, ballerinas tend to be very self-conscious and extremely thin. I was no different, at least until I pivoted.
I had a series of syncope incidents, that’s the medical way to say I passed out. Like Elvis, I passed out in the bathroom, twice. I don’t know how I didn’t crack my head in the shower. I had already been diagnosed with HCM. With these now happening, I qualified for an implanted defibrillator. Qualified meant there was a high probability I would die without it. My sister’s defibrillator had already saved her life, so I was glad to get it. Implanting the device meant a surgeon would create a pocket on the side of my body, right below my armpit, to slide a device almost the size of a pack of cards into. Then he would insert a wire from the device that would curl around my heart. If my heart stopped, the device was there to shock me back to life.
The surgery legitimately lets me describe myself as bionic. It also left me with a few scars on my side and chest. And needless to say, on my 5’ under 100-pound body, the device is rather noticeable. When the bandages from surgery came off, I truly embraced self-acceptance and pivoted in my idea of beauty.
I love helping others embrace the beauty of a flawed body and see the strength in their scars. I am available for body-positive modeling and speaking engagements.
I am not currently dancing. That is partly due to my condition worsening. But I have found my creative outlet in doing innovative advocacy work as well. I have a job in public service, and I’m a certified AHA Heart Saver Instructor.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.getheartcharged.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heartcharged/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCG78Ekn-LJb8RdAddk0kNeA