Life-Saving Response

Thanks to a grant from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, more than 15,000 people have been trained in bystander CPR/AED use at area schools, professional sporting events, churches and in the community.

Thanks to a grant from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, more than 15,000 people have been trained in bystander CPR/AED use.

UB orthopaedic surgeon Leslie Bisson aims to improve sudden cardiac arrest outcomes for communities in need.

Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin’s recovery from the sudden cardiac arrest he suffered at the Bills-Bengals matchup in January 2023 was nothing short of miraculous.  

Sudden cardiac arrest, or SCA, is a life-threatening condition that occurs when the heart suddenly stops beating, cutting off blood flow to the brain and other vital organs. 

Hamlin’s survival was due in no small part to the cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) he was given directly on the field by a team led by Leslie J. Bisson, a UB sports medicine surgeon and the Bills’ medical director.

A few months after Hamlin’s injury and remarkable recovery, the Bills medical and training staff received the Pat Tillman Award for Service at the 2023 ESPY awards. For Bisson, it was the start of a busy year spent preventing death from SCA.

Solving CPR Disparities

Other than a hospital, Bisson says, an NFL stadium is one of the safest places in the world to sustain a life-threatening injury.

“The NFL is highly resourced,” says Bisson, who is the June A. and Eugene R. Mindell, MD Professor and chair of the Department of Orthopaedics, senior associate dean for clinical transformation in the UB Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and president of UBMD Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine.

But Bisson knew amateur sporting events in the community and at local schools were a different story; only 10% of people who experience cardiac arrest in the community survive.

Given the attention drawn by Hamlin’s injury, Bisson saw a window of opportunity to help train bystanders how to spot SCA and react as first-line responders. He set out to see if he could make a difference. 

“I started paying attention to the data on CPR, how often it’s performed by bystanders and especially how there is a racial and community disparity in how often people get bystander CPR training in certain areas versus others,” he says. 

Last August, using $150,000 in seed funding from UB, UB Orthopaedics partnered with UB’s Department of Emergency Medicine to develop a culturally sensitive, “hands-only” CPR script that didn’t rely on automated external defibrillator (AED) devices, which are not always available. UB athletic trainers partnered with Buffalo Black Nurses, Inc. (BBN) to conduct hands-only CPR sessions, teaching Western New York student athletes and their families how to respond during a cardiac arrest. 

The program expanded a few months later, when the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation awarded Bisson a $300,000 grant to address barriers to bystander CPR/AED training in historically underserved communities in Buffalo. A second grant, for $350,000, arrived in September from the Foundation to help build program capacity through 2025.

Using the Cabrini funding, Bisson’s initial goal was to train 8,000 high school athletes and fans in bystander CPR/AED use. He leveraged the UB Orthopaedics’ existing relationships with dozens of schools, thanks to its athletic trainer program that embeds trainers in those schools and communities. 

“We couldn’t do what we’re doing without the funding that we’ve obtained from UB initially and then Mother Cabrini,” says Bisson.  

An Overwhelming Response

So far, successful training events have been held at area schools, professional sporting events, churches, “and a variety of community events,” Bisson says, noting the turnout at a CPR awareness tent at this year’s Juneteenth festival in Buffalo. “The amount of engagement by participants was astonishing.”

Since sessions began last summer, 15,146 people have been trained at 132 events, far exceeding Bisson’s original goals. Along with a social justice fellow at the Jacobs School, Bisson’s team also partners with non-profits Cardiac Crusade and Pulse Point, whose mobile phone app connects nearby citizen rescuers with local paramedic dispatchers. To date, 298 AEDs have been registered across WNY.

Recently, Bisson and his wife, CPR/AED Outreach Program Coordinator Karen Bisson, MBA ’02, also a registered nurse, were honored for Partnership of the Year by BBN. 

“Both organizations had a common goal to train the community and specifically the black and brown communities to decrease the mortality rate during cardiac arrest,” says Rhonda Wilson, BBN president. “UBMD in partnership with Buffalo Black Nurses has trained over 14,000 people. These numbers are incredible and will continue to increase as we continue this partnership and initiative in 2025.”

If we can get more people to feel comfortable calling 911, beginning chest compressions and finding and using an AED, we will be closing that gap, no matter where a cardiac arrest happens.” – Leslie Bisson

Story by Lauren Newkirk Maynard

Published January 10, 2025