Central Catholic High School will be the first to test having Electrocardiogram screenings offered for free during the school day on Friday

 High school students in the Bloomington-Normal area will begin having the opportunity for free Electrocardiogram screenings directly in their high school.

From 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday, Central Catholic High School will be the first school to test pilot EKG screenings for students.

The screenings are composed of small stickers, similar to bandages, being applied to students’ chests. The screenings are safe and pain-free.

“It takes a few seconds’ glimpse of the heart, that five second glimpse of the electrical conduction through the heart so a student just lies quietly for a few seconds while we capture that,” Christie Rocke, registered nurse at Advocate BroMenn Medical Center, said.

“Now it’s not going to capture all irregularities that might exist within the heart, but we can capture a large majority of those abnormalities that exist,” Rocke added.

“This EKG is to help those students or young people who don’t have any warning signs but have the condition,” Joy Allen, principal of Central Catholic High School, added.

Cardiac arrest can happen to any student, regardless of physical fitness, just going along his or her daily basis. There is always some sort of physical activity going into a student’s week, and anyone can be at risk without knowing it, Rocke explained.

“When we’re at each high school, we really encourage all of the students at that high school to do it,” she said. “All active students, not just student athletes.”

Even playing basketball on weekends, touch football, participating in marching band or playing baseball with family — there is always some sort of physical activity going into a student’s week and anyone can be at risk without knowing it.

“Most of the time it’s high school students and older who actually have died from this acute heart attack that’s only detected through EKGs and other testing after that,” Allen said.

There will be training Thursday night for parent volunteers performing the screenings on the students.

“It’s kind of a good way for [students] to really see their parents reaching out and taking care of them,” Rocke said. “Although their parents take care of them all the time, it’s just good for them to see their parents taking care of them in another capacity.”

As a test pilot school, other schools are interested in seeing how these tests will be done and will have representatives in attendance of these screenings.

“Some of the principals from the other inner city schools are going to come on Friday to see pretty much how we’re doing it and learn a little bit more about it because the goal, I know, is to test every single high school student in the Bloomington-Normal area,” Allen explained.

The plan is to come back to high schools every other year and truly help students in the most comfortable way possible.       

“The big thing for us is modesty is really protected for both boys and girls,” Rocke explained. “So we make sure boys areas are separate from girls to make sure that privacy, modesty.”

“Those are both really protected and [we] really train our staff to make sure we really maintain those to maintain a really high comfort level for them.”