Mayor Blangiardi declares Oct. 20 ‘Pamela Foster Day’

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi proclaimed “Pamela Foster Day,” recognizing her decades of work promoting CPR education and access to automated external defibrillators Monday.

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Foster, a registered nurse, founded the AED Institute of America in 2004 to promote bystander CPR and the use of AEDs in public places.

Under her leadership, the organization has placed more than 10,000 AEDs in communities and provided CPR education to tens of thousands of people each year.

In 2006, Foster launched Operation Stay’N Alive through the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation Airports Division. The program has since expanded to 13 airports on six islands.

“Since implementing the AED program at our local airports, more than 86 cardiac arrest patients have been saved,” Foster said.

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She added that one of those saves happened Monday morning at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, where a Good Samaritan used an AED on a patient who was not breathing and had no pulse.

Foster also founded the Hawaiʻi Heart Foundation in 2010, which has provided free CPR training to more than 200,000 elementary school students.

“Every second matters when someone experiences sudden cardiac arrest,” Blangiardi said. “Pamela Foster has dedicated her career to making sure more people in Hawaiʻi are prepared to take action.”

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The recognition comes during National Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month.