Enhancing emergency preparedness of community and youth sport activities: the Sugadaira AED for Everyone (SAFE) project

In Japan, the sports club calendar typically follows a year-round season. Each summer, schools and general club teams hold training camps in summer resorts for a few days to a week or two, participating in training sessions and tournaments. For rugby players, Sugadaira in Nagano prefecture is a popular training camp sanctuary. Each year, hundreds of thousands of athletes and spectators gather in Sugadaira to cheer on student-athletes as they get ready for their fall and winter competition seasons. One of the primary reasons for Sugadaira’s popularity among teams is the number of athletic fields in the area. In total, there are 107 athletic fields (figure 1), most of which are managed by the lodges that provide housing and meals for the teams during their stay. Outside of the high-demand seasons by sports lovers, the area is rural and sparsely populated (population of 940, according to the national census report in 2020). The area has an average emergency medical service response time of 33.4 min due to its geographical characteristics (ie, highlands) that warrant the ambulance dispatch from towns at the foot of the mountains (national average: 10.3 min1). In 2021, a college student-athlete experienced cardiopulmonary arrest during a rugby match and was successfully resuscitated. This dramatic save was possible due to a seamless and efficient chain of survival facilitated by fortunate circumstances: the bystander was a cardiologist, an automated external defibrillator (AED) was accessible at a nearby facility within 3 min and favourable weather conditions allowed for the air ambulance service to reach the collapsed athlete. Figure 1 Map of the Sugadaira, Nagano, Japan, where …