Wear Red for Women donates AEDs to E.W. Thompson Health and Rehab Center

December 27, 2024

Wear Red for Women, a Bothwell Foundation committee, recently gave an automated external defibrillator (AED) to the E.W. Thompson Health and Rehab Center. An AED is a small, lightweight device that allows individuals and first responders to treat sudden cardiac arrest. The machine automatically analyzes the heart rhythm and when appropriate, it delivers an electrical shock to the heart to restore its normal rhythm.

Cardiac arrest can happen to anyone and anywhere, and people between the ages of 50 and 70 are particularly at risk. To be effective, AEDs must be accessible to bystanders and first responders in as many places as possible.

Funds to purchase the device were raised during the 2024 Wear Red for Women luncheon and auction. The committee’s goal is to have AEDs in every place people work, learn, play or pray in Sedalia and Pettis County. Since the inception of the luncheon event in 2020, nearly 100 AEDs have been placed in or committed to various locations. The 2025 Wear Red for Women event is Feb. 28, 2025, and tickets will be available in January.

E.W. Thompson Health and Rehab Center received an AED from the Bothwell Foundation’s Wear Red for Women committee. Front row, from left to right, Ashley Wooster, committee member; Leisha Nakagawa, Bothwell Foundation volunteer and foundation specialist; Melinda McAloose, E.W. Thompson Human Resources director; Kathy Williams, E.W. Thompson administrator; Sara Meisner, E.W. Thompson Nursing director; Lori Wightman, Bothwell Regional Health Center CEO and committee co-chair; and Connie McLaughlin and Eddie Crouch, committee members; back row, from left to right, Trish Henson, Angie Thomas, Erica Petersen, Jami Sleeper and Meghan Funkhouser, committee members; and Dianne Simon, Thompson Hills Investment Corporation vice president and committee co-chair.

Bothwell Regional Health Center is a regional health center serving west-central Missouri with state-of-the-art technology and comprehensive health and wellness services including primary care, specialty care and emergency care. For more information about Bothwell and its services, visit www.brhc.org or find us on Facebook.

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