Sam Yates Foundation celebrates opening of new AED SaveStation

Islanders celebrated the lives of two young Vashon men and the unveiling of a new lifesaving tool — an automated external defibrillator (AED) — in their honor on Saturday, Oct. 14, during a ceremony at the VES athletics fields, presented by the Sam Yates Community Foundation.

The AED, encased in a climate-controlled box called a SaveStation, is located on the outside wall of a public restroom on the fields, with easy access for students, parents, and athletes using the fields or exiting the nearby Harbor School.

Every second counts when someone undergoes cardiac arrest, and easy access to an AED could easily make a life-or-death difference.

For the family of islander Sam Yates, who died last year from a cardiac arrest, it’s also a way of honoring his legacy.

It will “hopefully prevent another tragedy (like the kind) that took Sam from us,” Sam’s father, John Yates, told the audience.

Generous donations from the community and VashonBePrepared, John said, funded the $4,200 AED/SaveStation at the school, and will also help install more of them on Vashon.

At the ceremony, several speakers shared memories of Sam and their own experiences with the life-saving powers of AEDs.

A standout scholar and athlete at VHS, Sam graduated in 2016 and went on to play basketball at the University of Puget Sound, ultimately graduating from Washington State University in 2020.

Sam took his first job out of school in the financial industry, but during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, decided to take his leadership skills to the Marine Corps. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant on November 20, 2021 after graduating from Officers Candidate School.

On June 23, 2022, Yates died from sudden cardiac arrest at Marine Corps Base Quantico Station, in Virginia. It was just days shy of the graduation ceremony for his class at The Basic School. He was 24.

And this year, another promising young Vashon man died from the same condition.

Andrew Walker, who John Yates coached in baseball and basketball, died May 28 at the age of 23. He had just graduated from Boise State University when he collapsed near the finish line while running his first marathon.

“This outstanding young man with huge potential, and a bigger smile, suffered sudden cardiac arrest,” John Yates said.

Now, Sam and Andrew’s memories have spurred change on Vashon: “Of all the things a parent worries about when their child joins the military, sudden cardiac arrest is not one of them,” John Yates said. “Yet that’s why we’re here today.”

Andrew’s mother, Mimi Walker, who attended the ceremony, was “thrilled” to see the new SaveStation go in.

“And I have to say that Jill Yates (Sam’s mother), as a mom, has been so amazing, helping me in my journey,” Walker said. “And the Vashon community has been amazing. Amazing.”

John Yates agreed: “It’s hard to describe how this community has reached out to take care of us.”

“We’re gonna save more lives”

Just months after Sam’s death, John Yates recounted, NFL player Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest during a Monday Night Football game. CPR and the work of medical professionals restored his heartbeat and kept him alive.

“We knew we had our goal,” John Yates said. “Damar survived because of immediate medical response, but of 374,000 sudden cardiac arrest victims in the U.S. each year, 23,000 are 18 or younger (and) only 8% survive.”

Communities with awareness around CPR and AED training have better odds of survival, Yates said, and that’s what spurred their mission.

The foundation worked with the park district, schools, fire district and other agencies to make the SaveStation happen. The foundation now has six more AEDs on order to place around the island, John Yates said.

Once the island is well saturated with the live-saving tools, John Yates said, they’ll look across the water to keep making an impact. The Sam Yates Foundation is specific to their efforts on the island, he said. The Thumbs Up Foundation, so named after a picture of Sam from the Marine Corps, was also created by John, Jill and the other board members, and it will serve their mission beyond the island.

Fire personnel aim to get to emergencies as soon as they can with the right people and equipment, Vashon Island Fire & Rescue chief Matt Vinci told the audience at the AED’s unveiling.

“But prior to that, if we can have more of these [AEDs] on the island, we’re gonna save more lives,” he said. “That’s just a fact. We have more AEDs now than we did a year ago.”

Chamber of Commerce Director Amy Drayer shared her own dramatic story of cardiac arrest survival at the ceremony.

When she was 14, Drayer said, she suffered a sudden cardiac arrest, too. She began receiving CPR in minutes.

“I was gone by the time (medical services) got there,” Drayer said. “They defibrillated me 13 times. They didn’t get me back until we were almost at Harborview. … No brainwaves, no cardiac activity, nothing. But I received CPR, they kept blood and oxygen going to me, and the folks in the ambulance just never, ever gave up. This technology brought me back. It’s why I’m standing here today.”

It’s for that reason that Drayer feels a connection to Sam — and a profound appreciation of what the community’s efforts that day meant.

“Everyone who’s raising awareness — what you’re doing is why I’m standing here today,” Drayer said. “It takes a lot of love to give a second chance at life to a total stranger.”

“The Sam Yates Community Foundation’s collaboration with friends, supporters and community partners is a shining example of preparedness and action,” said VashonBePrepared board president Vicky de Monterey Richoux. “VashonBePrepared was honored to contribute some small part to this work.”

The AED’s location means it is also just a few minutes away from Vashon Highway. To view other AED locations on Vashon and beyond, you can download the “PulsePoint” app.

Another opportunity for preventative care is coming up, too.

On Wednesday, Dec. 6, the Nick of Time Foundation will visit Vashon’s schools to perform EKGs and blood pressure tests on Vashon youth between 12 and 24 years old.

The Nick of Time Foundation, also based in Washington, was also founded to honor the memory of a young athlete who died of sudden cardiac arrest; its work includes the wide facilitation of youth heart screenings as well as providing awareness for public access to AEDs and providing CPR/AED education.

With over 27,000 youth screened at 89 schools, Nick of Time Foundation Youth EKG Heart Screenings are now known as the gold standard in community-based youth heart screenings.

John Yates said they’ll be looking for 300 young people to receive screenings, which can proactively identify heart issues, at the Nick of Time’s upcoming event on Vashon.

Can you handle the Sam workout?

Vashon Island Fire & Rescue has put together a workout dedicated to Sam Yates, informally called “The Sam workout,” which is now on the board at the department’s gym, Fire Chief Matt Vinci told the audience on Saturday.

This is an “Every Minute on the Minute” (EMOM) 20-minute workout broken into two halves.

In an ENOM workout, you perform a specific exercise or set of exercises at the start of every minute and aim to complete the prescribed number of repetitions within that minute. Whatever time remains in that minute is your rest period, before starting the next set when the next minute begins.

10 minutes alternating exercises: