Assembylman Andrew Goodell, R-Jamestown, debates legislation to require automated external defribillators at camps and youth sports programs throughout the state.

Camps and youth sports programs will need to starting planning how to add automated external defribillators to their sites — and soon after that how to pay for them.

Both houses of the state Legislature have approved legislation (A.366) that will require camps and sports programs to create an implementation plan with the end goal of having the equipment at all practice and game sites. Assembly members voted 141-5 in favor of the legislation while Senate passage was unanimous.

Assemblyman Andrew Goodell, R-Jamestown, was one of the five votes against the bill in the Assembly, saying during his remarks on the floor that he disagrees with requiring a plan and eventual purchase without including state funding as part of the legislation.

“This bill imposes a cost estimated by the sponsor at $1,500 for every one of those volunteer teams,” Goodell said. “Then you can go back to your community and say I’m glad you all volunteer to help your kids learn how to play softball. You face a $2,000 a day fine unless you come up with a $1,500 defibrillator and make sure at least one of your volunteers is trained. … I appreciate the desire to be as safe as possible, but this is $1,500for every single volunteer team in your county, for every one of them, and zero funding in this bill. And a $2000 a day fine if you don’t have it.”

The fine mechanism Goodell mentioned isn’t part of the legislation itself, but the fines listed in the state Public Health Law, which is where A.366 are located. Sports leagues and camps will have to show the state how AEDs will be made available at every camp, game or practice and how they will there shall be at least one employee, volunteer, coach, umpire or other qualified adult who has successfully completed a training course in the operation of an automated external defibrillator.

According to the American Heart Association, an international team of researchers looked at 49,555 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests that occurred in major U.S. and Canada cities. They analyzed a subgroup of those cardiac arrest cases, those that occurred in public, were witnessed and were shockable. The researchers found that nearly 66% of these victims survived to hospital discharge after a shock delivered by a bystander. Among the study’s results:

¯ Bystanders used an AED in 18.8% of these cases.

¯ Cardiac arrest victims who received a shock from a publicly-available AED had far greater chances of survival and being discharged from the hospital than those who did not; 66.5% versus 43%.

Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes, D-Buffalo and Assembly majority leader, said she supports the legislation while telling the story of a basketball player at City Honors who was playing basketball with teammates on an outdoor court and later died. She also pushed back against arguments about cost to local sports leagues.

“I believe that this one is going to be impactful as well because as difficult as it may be for some people to think its unaffordable, it’s always affordable to try and save the life of a child,” Peoples-Stokes said. “We figure out ways to buy everything else we want including things some of us in here don’t even mind the fact people couldn’t afford to go off and afford military style weapons to go up in the schools and kill as many children as they can. I think there is no cost that’s too much to protect the life of a child. And no matter what they’re doing whether they’re playing athletics or they’re in school sitting down doing their math work we need to be prepared to have whatever they need to protect them. Whatever we need to protect them we need to have on-site.”