LIVINGSTON PARISH, La. (WAFB) – A Livingston Parish family is continuing to make strides in their efforts to spread more awareness about preventing sudden cardiac arrest and death in children, teens, and young adults.

Michelle and Dale Temple had their firstborn son Grayson or “Gray” in 2005. He loved basketball, baseball and football. He enjoyed fishing, hunting and the outdoors. His parents described him as the picture of health. Gray died in Dec. 2021 due to sudden cardiac arrest. They didn’t know their son had an underlying cardiac arrhythmia and was having symptoms six to eight weeks prior.

The Temples created Gray’s Army Foundation in Feb. 2022, to raise awareness through community events, provide education, and promote more research. This comes as more than 22,000 youth were affected by sudden cardiac arrest, Michelle Temple said.

“We’re trying to work in our community to raise the money to help people where we can, but it’s going to take all of us working together and pulling those funds to get our schools provided with these AEDs and make sure our programs are covered because a lot of times these schools have multiple sporting events going on so if they have a limited amount of AEDs, not all athletes are covered,” said Michelle Temple.

The Temples are making headway locally. At the last Livingston Parish Council meeting, they adopted the motion to require AEDs in all Livingston Parish public parks, and for coaches to be trained in CPR.

On the state level, Gray’s Army Foundation has worked with Senator Cleo Fields and Dr. Steven Kelley, a Baton Rouge cardiologist, to pass the Jumpstart the Heart AED bill. It’s a funded bill that requires all schools K through colleges to have at least one AED on campus. They must have AEDs at sporting events and the schools must have an emergency action plan by the end of this year.

Symptoms before a sudden cardiac arrest according to the Mayo Clinic include:

The organization also has some upcoming events:

February 17 – Love Your Heart Day at LASM Downtown – will be set up for individuals to come try out their CPR skills.

May 30-June 1 – National CPR Rally in Washington D.C.

June 15 – 3rd Annual Anglin’ for the Heart Benefit Bass Tournament