Health Care

Heartfelt Banquet is back: Cape Fear Valley Health System's third annual event is in-person for the first time since COVID

By Kathie Harris, posted 1 year ago
The keynote speaker for the event is Samara Ackerman, whose case was covered in the winter edition of CFHV's Making Rounds magazine. PHOTOS PROVIDED BY CAPE FEAR VALLEY HEALTH.

The third annual Heartfelt Banquet will be a live, in-person event at Manna Church's Cliffdale site on May 17 at 6 p.m. 

Cape Fear Valley Health System's cardiac services team delayed the event's usual winter calendar slot in hopes that a reduced COVID-19 presence in Fayetteville would allow for connections that can only be made in person, says Cardiac Services corporate director Michelle Keasling-Jankite.
“We feel comfortable we can do it in a safe way,” says Keasling-Jankite. “It’s more meaningful to have an in-person event.”
The Heartfelt Banquet brings together cardiac arrest survivors with the people who saved their lives, including emergency management services personnel, firefighters, police, and the cardiac care providers of CFVH.
“It’s a good way to get together and recognize the accomplishment of hands-only CPR and our system of care,” says Keasling-Jankite.
Reuniting people who share a life and death moment is not the event's only goal. Keasling-Jankite says raising awareness around CPR and other intervention methods is key to more success stories like those recognized at each banquet.
“The one thing we know, when we compare our community with other areas around the country, is where they teach hands-only CPR and have high rates of community instruction, the better bystander responses and better survival rates,” says Keasling-Jankite.
Quick responses and access to facilities like CFVH where patients receive comprehensive cardiac arrest interventions raise not only survival rates, but a quicker return to full capacity for survivors.
Helen Averitte, a former Cape Fear Lifelink paramedic and cardiac arrest survivor, was the keynote speaker at the inaugural banquet in 2018.
“I think it’s really good that you actually get to see patients you may have worked on in the field and meet them face to face and see their families, knowing that you made a difference,” says Averitte. 

Averitte credits early CPR intervention for saving her life after her 2017 heart attack. Her husband, John, also a paramedic, began treating her immediately. Emergency personnel continued to work on Averitte for more than two hours before her heart started again.
“I already knew the people who worked on me, but it was nice to see them and actually be able to meet the ICU nurses and 911 call takers (at the banquet),” says Averitte. “It’s to all their credit that I don’t have any deficits.”
The banquet hosts 250 attendees on average, but because of the pandemic cancellations of 2020 and 2021, this year’s banquet anticipates around 300. Attendees include those who have survived cardiac arrests in 2020 and 2021 from Cumberland County and several surrounding counties who received treatment at CFVH.
The planning committee consists of emergency services teams, administrators, the chief nursing officer, and the vice president for emergency management. Organizers attempt to seat survivors with their rescuers for a truly memorable experience.
Aramark Catering, CFVH’s food service provider, is catering the sit-down event. In the past, the banquet was funded by sponsors, vendor donations, and the Cape Fear Valley Health Foundation. CFVH is cover-
ing the 2022 banquet costs.
Foundation donations made out to the Heartfelt Banquet are still
welcome.
Each banquet features a keynote speaker, usually a survivor willing to share their story of survival and recovery. This year’s speaker, Samaya Ackerman, was featured in the CVFH magazine Making Rounds after a sudden cardiac arrest at the age of 19. The immediate response of bystanders, medical personnel, and cardiac technology like CVFH’s
extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) life support system helped save Ackerman’s life.
The banquet will honor her and her rescuers, including Dr. Myron Strickland, a bystander that evening, paramedics, ER and ECMO team members.
As a comprehensive cardiac center, CFVH offers all the services a patient might need, says Keasling-Jankite. She says there are 300,000 cardiac arrests every year. The causes differ and they’re not always seen in just older patients.
“You could have abnormal electrical rhythms occur in young patients, like the stories of athletes who collapse, to someone who is elderly with non-specific symptoms who didn’t seek care,” says Keasling-Jankite.
“The Heartfelt Banquet idea came from trying to think of how we could raise awareness to support hands-only CPR amongst laypeople,” says Keasling-Jankite. “We recognize that sometimes, we don’t always get the opportunity to know how what we did impacted the patient.”

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