Sarah Mattie, Survivor, Postpartum Cardiomyopathy
Jimmie Russell, Survivor, Heart Disease
Andrea Witte, Survivor, Marfan Syndrome & Heart Disease
Ella Goss, Board Member, American Heart Association – Western States
Chelsea Hunt, Survivor, Stroke
nchorage resident Chelsea Hunt was on a FaceTime call with a friend in Idaho in February 2022 when she noticed something was wrong.
“I was walking around the kitchen, and I went to go sit down,” Hunt recalls. “I’m sitting there and all of a sudden she’s like, ‘What’s wrong with your face?’”
Unbeknownst to Chelsea, her face had begun to droop. Not only that, but her entire left side was suddenly immobilized, and she was unable to speak.
“At that point, I remember thinking, ‘What’s going on?’” she says. “I kept taking my right hand and lifting my left wrist and it kept dropping. In my brain, I could hear myself talking, but it was coming out all mumbled. I kept thinking, ‘What is happening to me?’ I had no clue. I had no symptoms or warning signs whatsoever. It just happened.”
Though Hunt and her friend didn’t know it, the then-36-year-old was having a stroke, making her one of the more than 795,000 Americans who experience one each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her friend immediately called Hunt’s mom, who in turn called Hunt’s home and directed her then 12-year-old son James to dial 911.
Paramedics got Hunt to Alaska Regional Hospital within 12 minutes of arriving at her home, and surgeons immediately removed three blood clots from her brain. Hunt’s recovery, doctors told her, was miraculous.
“I was only in the ICU for four days, which they said was pretty miraculous considering how big of a stroke I had,” she says. “I had all of my motor skills back and I had no speech loss, which they said was absolutely amazing for how many blood clots they got out.”
In a very palpable way, Hunt owes her life to the American Heart Association (AHA). A year before her stroke, Alaska Regional became the first hospital in the state to receive a comprehensive stroke certification. Based on standards co-created by the American Stroke Association, a division of the AHA, the certification is given to medical centers that address the full spectrum of stroke care.
Six cardiologists were determined to change that prognosis. Convinced that teamwork among medical professionals and heart-focused research would not only increase knowledge of heart disease but improve outcomes, the sextet formed AHA on June 10, 1924, as a scientific society with the goal to save, improve, and extend lives.
A hundred years later, the AHA has expanded in scope and size, but its original mission remains unchanged. It is the largest volunteer organization in the country dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke and is the single largest non-government funder of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular research. Its public outreach and awareness campaigns have educated Americans on the signs and symptoms of heart attack and stroke and the link between lifestyle and heart health. Its financial support of heart- and stroke-related research has reduced the number of deaths due to both—since February 2018, death from stroke is down 13.6 percent and death from heart disease down 15.1 percent.
“The American Heart Association’s primary mission is to invest in science and research, educate the public, advocate for healthy communities, and maintain awareness around the signs and symptoms of heart disease and stroke,” says Providence Alaska CEO Ella Goss, a board member of AHA Western States.
“The AHA [investments] into research have led to lifesaving discoveries that include implantable pacemakers, artificial heart valve replacements, some of the drugs, like statins [that help lower cholesterol], and drug-coated stents,” Goss says. “Also, they educate people on the signs of stroke and heart attacks, and they invest money into the research of what the true signs and symptoms are, and what should people be looking for so they can intervene timelier and lessen the damage.”
Awareness for the AHA’s work and the issue of heart disease received an unexpected boost in 1955 when then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower had a heart attack; the nation watched his public recovery, which was guided by AHA co-founder Dr. Paul White. Another presidential boost came in 1964 when then-President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed February American Heart Month, a designation that continues today.
The AHA’s research and advocacy efforts also center on promoting healthy lifestyle changes. In the late ‘50s it called for a public awareness campaign against smoking. After research showed the link between smoking and heart disease, AHA declared smoking “the most preventable cause of heart disease.” Its support helped add stronger warning labels to cigarette packaging and was instrumental in a major change that recent generations consider a normal part of life since 1990.
“Not a lot of people know this, but it was the AHA that got commercial airlines to stop smoking on their flights and helped stop smoking in public places,” Goss says. “That was all championed by the AHA.”
American Heart Association
American Heart Association
American Heart Association
“As medical research became more sophisticated, we have been able to demonstrate how heart disease or different kinds of heart defects can lead to blood clotting, and then how those blood clots can become dislodged and travel to the brain, causing a stroke,” Goss explains. “Being able to tie that symptomology of heart disease and blood clots together helped drive that evolution.”
Hunt’s experience opened her eyes to the risk of heart disease and stroke, and she has since become a vocal part of the AHA’s advocacy and outreach efforts. She shares her story publicly to help educate people about the signs and symptoms of stroke. In 2024 she was named a Go Red for Women Ambassador, the organization’s national effort to bring awareness to the issue of heart disease and stroke in women.
“Heart disease is the number one killer of women, which is kind of a shocking thing I hadn’t learned before,” Hunt says. “As women, we do so much stuff for other people that when we start having any issues, we tend to ignore it. Sometimes, when it gets to that point, it’s irreversible, and it’s too late to fix the problem.”
“What the local chapter of the AHA does is understand our community and what the community needs are, so we can determine where to focus those efforts,” she explains. “We do have some autonomy, but we stay aligned with what the national association is rolling out.”
The Alaska chapter’s efforts to bring hands-only CPR training to villages is one way it tailors national priorities to best suit local needs. In the ‘60s, the AHA funded research that led to CPR becoming the gold standard for resuscitation efforts. For forty years, First Aid courses taught a 15-to-2 mix of chest compressions to mouth-to-mouth, then 30-to-2. In 2008, updated research showed that omitting rescue breaths and performing hands-only CPR was equally effective, especially for rescuers with little to no training, so AHA has worked to teach the updated guidelines.
“We determined that Anchorage pretty much does a really good job with hands-only CPR training,” says Goss, whose career included time as an emergency room nurse. “Hands-only CPR training in the remote communities was one we really pushed for, to make sure that everybody understands how to help someone having a cardiac event.”
The AHA helped the Bethel Family Clinic roll out self-monitoring blood pressure apparatuses for patients to use at home. The association also continues to advocate for expanded postpartum coverage for Medicaid recipients; the Alaska Legislature passed Senate Bill 58 in 2023 to extend coverage for new mothers from 60 days after giving birth to 12 months, which took effect in October, following US Department of Health and Human Services approval.
“We know that people who have serious illnesses, or if they have an operation or some type of procedure in the hospital, may not heal timely and properly if there is poor nutrition,” Goss says. “If there’s no food security, then we look at how can we make sure that we provide them with the right levels of nutrition through the food banks and different community programs to make sure that there is access to the nutrition they need while they convalesce.”
The Alaska Chapter has helped local organizations provide residents with that nutrition. It helped fund the purchase of freeze dryers (which extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables) for the Kenai Peninsula and Fairbanks Community Food Banks and a refrigerated trailer for Grow North Farm, Catholic Social Services of Anchorage’s community farm.
“Anyone who wants to do something within their facility can have a relationship with the AHA. It’s not just hospitals,” Goss says. “An oil company can call and request training in a certain area. So it has a broad and diverse reach into the community because we know that heart disease and stroke affect everyone. It’s not just the business of healthcare to ensure that we’re taking care of everyone; it’s a community effort to make sure that everyone understands the warning signs, the signs and symptoms of heart disease and stroke.”
That community effort includes bringing the AHA’s message to children. During the 2023/2024 school year, more than sixty Alaska schools participated in the annual Kids Heart Challenge and American Heart Challenge, which educates children about healthy living.
All of the AHA’s work, from research to advocacy to outreach, has helped improve the health of Alaskans.
“Alaska has benefited from the work that the AHA has done over the last 100 years,” Goss says. “The amount of research that they have done has helped hospitals have the most updated information, research, devices, and things that are needed to provide preventative care, acute level care when needed for procedures, and post-acute care when people are discharged.”