{"id":146360,"date":"2026-02-06T18:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T18:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/146360\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T18:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T18:44:13","slug":"florida-nonprofit-offers-heart-screenings-for-youth-ahead-of-new-state-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/146360\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida nonprofit offers heart screenings for youth ahead of new state law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1500\" height=\"940\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Youth-Heart-Screening-photo-credit-Who-We-Play-For.jpg\" class=\"attachment-253235 size-253235 wp-post-image\" alt=\"Youth Heart Screening Who We Play For\" large=\"\" decoding=\"async\"  \/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto by Who We Play For.<\/p>\n<p>A life-threatening heart condition looms unseen in 1 out of every 300 youth and a ECG can detect a life-threatening heart defect that may result in sudden cardiac arrest.<\/p>\n<p>According to a press release, a Florida nonprofit called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whoweplayfor.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cWho We Play For\u201d<\/a>\u00a0is offering life-saving heart screenings to adolescents on Saturday in St Petersburg. <a href=\"https:\/\/form.jotform.com\/253455449744063\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Registration is now available for ages 10 to 25,<\/a> regardless of fitness level, to receive a free 5-minute electrocardiogram (ECG).<\/p>\n<p>This event will be held Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Galen College of Nursing in St Petersburg. Medical professionals will be conducting the non-invasive screenings. It involves sticking small pads like band-aids to a person\u2019s torso; boys and girls are screened separately.<\/p>\n<p>All student athletes taking part in high school sports will need to receive a heart screening before tryout or practices this upcoming school year, this is thanks to a new Florida law called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whoweplayfor.org\/second-chance-act\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Second Chance Act<\/a>. It is designed to identify and prevent sudden cardiac arrest, which results in the deaths of roughly 23,000 youth annually.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFebruary 7 is National Youth Screening Day, and we are thrilled to help spread the message that all kids deserve to have their hearts checked. It\u2019s our honor to help protect families across Florida from the worst tragedy imaginable\u2013losing a child to a preventable condition,\u201d said Evan Ernst, Executive Director of Who We Play For.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/form.jotform.com\/253455449744063\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pre-registration is highly recommended<\/a> as walk-in patients are not always accepted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by Who We Play For. A life-threatening heart condition looms unseen in 1 out of every 300&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[571,22651,30415,70814,202,204,203,199,201,200,9889],"class_list":{"0":"post-146360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-heart-health","10":"tag-news-and-public-affairs","11":"tag-non-profits","12":"tag-st-pete","13":"tag-st-pete-headlines","14":"tag-st-pete-news","15":"tag-st-petersburg","16":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","17":"tag-st-petersburg-news","18":"tag-youth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}