{"id":154627,"date":"2026-02-13T18:12:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/154627\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T18:12:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:12:26","slug":"free-heart-screenings-offered-saturday-in-jacksonville-student-athletes-encouraged-to-attend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/154627\/","title":{"rendered":"Free heart screenings offered Saturday in Jacksonville, student-athletes encouraged to attend"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Beginning July 1 of this year, a new Florida law will require all new high school athletes to complete a heart screening<\/a> before participating in school sports. <\/p>\n

On Saturday, student-athletes can receive the test for free. <\/p>\n

The required heart screening is an ECG, which is a painless test that can detect an irregular heartbeat, which can be a symptom of an often-fatal heart condition that can cause sudden cardiac death in children. <\/p>\n

The first symptom in young people is often cardiac arrest.<\/p>\n

News4JAX has brought you several stories during the last five years about seemingly healthy athletes who have died on the field or in the gym from an undiagnosed heart condition that could have been detected if the student-athlete had had an ECG test.<\/p>\n

RELATED | Florida father pushes for CPR mandate in high schools<\/a><\/p>\n

Evan Ernst, co-founder of Who We Play For, joined me during my 10 a.m. streaming show on News4JAX+ to explain how his organization worked with state legislators to better protect student-athletes from sudden cardiac death by creating the new law.<\/p>\n

Press play above to watch the full interview<\/p>\n

So far, 270 student-athletes are registered to attend Saturday\u2019s free heart screening event. <\/p>\n

Free heart screening details<\/p>\n

When: Saturday, Feb. 14, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.<\/p>\n

Where: Nemours Children\u2019s Health at 870 Children\u2019s Way in Jacksonville<\/p>\n

Who: While the screenings are available for children and young adults between the ages of 10 and 22, organizers are hopeful that 8th-grade student-athletes will take advantage of the free offer to fulfill the requirement under Florida\u2019s Second Chance Act<\/p>\n

While registration is not required to attend, you are encouraged to register your student-athlete or child to reduce the time it takes to get the test. Parents should print off the form and bring it with them to the test.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Beginning July 1 of this year, a new Florida law will require all new high…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[571,22651,116,118,117],"class_list":["post-154627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-health","tag-heart-health","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154627","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=154627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}