Florida High school athletes are now required to undergo electrocardiograms to rule out the risk of sudden cardiac death syndrome.

The Florida Second Chance Act came about after Chance Gainier, a Panhandle area high school football player, collapsed and died during a game in 2024. Although cardiac problems in young people are rare, an EKG can rule out tragedy before it strikes.Dr. Eric Eason is chief of pediatric cardiology at Golisano Children’s Hospital. He reads EKGs for a nonprofit called Who We Play For, which offers free or low-cost testing for student athletes.

"When we do screens in Lee County, if there's 100 kids that go through, we'll have three or four abnormal EKGs," Eason said. "I read a batch of EKGs last week, and out of 60 or so, there were two abnormalities." Abnormalities mean further testing is required.

Eason explains what happens in a sudden cardiac event.

"Your heart goes into an arrhythmia that can harm you or kill you. So that's the main thing we're looking for." There can be a range of causes. "There's things like prolonged QT, something called cardiomyopathy, where the muscle of the heart is abnormal. There are electrical problems like Wolff-Parkinson-White," he said.

Wolff-Parkinson-White is familiar to Anne Reed of Estero. Although symptoms of this kind of cardiac problem are rare, her daughter, Josephine, was 7 years old and complaining of chest pains. An abnormal EKG led to a diagnosis of Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome.

People with this condition have an extra pathway for signals to travel between the heart's upper and lower chambers. This causes a fast heartbeat and can cause sudden cardiac death.

A swim coach at Estero High School, Reed is a firm believer in these screenings.

"It's important because it is a screening test that it is truly the only way to catch something like Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome," Reed said. "There's no other way to catch it."

Josephine – healthy and almost 16 now – was a swimmer at the time.

"The fact that my kid was saying she had chest pain, everyone kept going, 'Oh, that's not really a symptom of anything.' And I'm like, 'Are you sure?'

"Before we had the program, it was voluntary. But now that we have it as part of a regulation. I feel like it is going to save lives," Reed said.

Eason agrees. "I think the state of Florida is definitely on the front of this medicine. I've been excited to see this move forward."

For information about upcoming screenings for student athletes, go to whoweplayfor.org.