Description

My name is Ronald Mirenda, I am the Health, Wellness, and Safety Director for Atlanta Fire United Soccer Association hailing from the City of Duluth, GA. We are a youth soccer organization of a little more than 1000 children ranging in ages 4-19. When I am not developing a return to play guidelines and COVID-19 protocols, I am also a Family Nurse Practitioner as well as a Subinvestigator for clinical trials focused on COVID related devices, adjuvant therapy as well as preventative vaccine trials. I along with my volunteer staff of Hospital Internists and CDC Epidemiologists see a critical safety concern and that is the lack of necessary emergency equipment. While the risk of Sudden Acute Heart Failure among athlete children and our spectator parents is enough to drive our concern for this necessity on our fields, the added stress of susceptibility of long term cardiovascular effects due to COVID-19 make this a critical need we can no longer ignore.
As an organization, we operate out of 3 practice facilities to which we do not have any AEDs. We are looking to raise enough awareness in order to acquire 3 units for these game fields.