Local couple’s AED bills signed into law
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Two years after their son's tragic death, Larry and Evelyn Pontbriant have been successful in getting legislation passed regarding automatic external defibrillators (AEDs).
The legislature has passed two bills that provide civil immunity for people providing, maintaining, or using automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) and requiring them in schools.
The bills, signed by Governor M. Jodi Rell at Norwich Free Academy June 18, are related to a local couple's efforts to have AEDs placed throughout the region where athletes congregate.
The Pontbriants have been advocating for the bills as they continue to raise funds and distribute AEDs, a cause they adopted following the death of their 15-year-old son, Larry Pontbriant, who died following cardiac arrest while running at Mohegan Park in Norwich in the summer of 2007.
The Backus Foundation donated 10 AEDs to the Larry Pontbriant Athletic Safety Fund, and hospital officials have been involved in helping the Pontbriants in their quest to make the region safer with AEDs, which are portable automatic devices used to restore normal heart rhythm to people in cardiac arrest.
"We are committed to causes that help us advance the hospital's mission of improving the health of the community," said Dave Whitehead, Vice President, Planning, at Backus. "The Pontbriants' efforts to make AEDs more widely available certainly fall into that category. Their commitment to this cause has been nothing short of extraordinary, and anyone who lives in our community should be thankful for it."
In their testimony in support of the bills, the Pontbriants explained that the fund set up in Larry's memory, with help from Backus, has allowed them to place 53 AEDs in schools and athletic fields.
"We do this because we don't want what happened to a Larry to happen to anyone else, not if we can help it," they said.
Donations can be sent to the Larry Pontbriant Athletic Safety Fund, c/o Community Foundation of the Tri-County Area Inc., P.O. Box 303, Norwich, CT 06360. For more information about the fund, please call 860-423-4373.