Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month 2026: Two Free Things Worth Doing In October

Most AED program checklists are a list of things to budget for. Devices, pads, batteries, training, cabinets, signage, medical direction.

Two items on that list are free, and October is the month the calendar makes the case for both of them.

One: More Than 84 Free Training Events, Nationwide

On September 23, 2026, the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation announced the second year of its Ready to Respond program. As of the announcement, more than 84 free public training events were scheduled across October.

The sessions cover hands-only CPR and how to use an AED. They are hosted in ordinary community spaces rather than training centers: libraries, fire departments, schools, art galleries. They are open to the public and they are free to attend.

“Sudden cardiac arrest can strike anyone, anywhere, at any time,” said Gina Peattie, the foundation's executive director, in the announcement. “But when people are equipped with knowledge and skills, they can make the difference between life and death.”

The full list of locations and hosts is published by the foundation at sca-aware.org/readytorespond.

Who This Is Actually Useful For

This is not a replacement for a certification course, and it does not satisfy a training requirement written into a state statute or an employer's policy. Treat it as something different and useful in its own right.

• Staff who are not designated responders. The receptionist, the custodian, the volunteer coach. In a real arrest, the person nearby is whoever is nearby.
• Second-shift and weekend staff who are rarely present when a formal training is scheduled during business hours.
• Board members, parents and congregation volunteers at organizations that own a device but have no training budget at all.
• Anyone who has never touched an AED trainer. The gap between having read about it and having held one is larger than people expect, and it closes in about fifteen minutes.

If there is an event near you, forwarding the link to your staff costs nothing and is a defensible line in a readiness log.

Two: Put Your AED On The Map

The second free action is registration, and a commentary published in the Kentucky Lantern on September 25, 2026 makes the case better than a checklist can.

The author, Sarah Katzenmaier, survived a sudden cardiac arrest in Lexington in October 2021. A bystander performed CPR until paramedics arrived with a defibrillator. There was an AED inside a nearby building at the time. Nobody trying to help her knew it was there.

She now helps lead a local mapping effort. Her account of its progress is the number worth carrying:

Four is not how many AEDs exist in a city of that size. Four is how many a dispatcher could see. The other devices were on walls the whole time, invisible to the one system that could send someone to them. The effort involves the Lexington Fire Department, the city's E911 unit, UK HealthCare, the American Heart Association and PulsePoint, and it has a public kickoff scheduled for October 16.

That gap between devices that exist and devices that are findable is the same in most communities. It is also the cheapest gap on any readiness list to close, because closing it requires a form rather than a purchase.

What Registering Takes

Per device, four pieces of information you can collect on a walk-around:

• Make and model, from the label on the unit.
• Serial number, from the same label.
• Exact placement, written the way a dispatcher would say it out loud: main lobby, right of the reception desk, in a wall cabinet.
• The hours that space is actually accessible, which is the field most often filled in optimistically.

Register in the public registry, then call the agency that answers 911 for your address and ask whether they maintain their own separate AED registration. Many do, and the national registry does not satisfy it. Several states also have their own registration or notification requirements, sometimes specific to schools, health clubs or public buildings, and those are binding rather than voluntary.

Our longer walkthrough of registration, including what breaks a listing over time, is linked at the bottom of this article.

A Four-Week Shape For The Month

If you want October to produce something rather than pass, this is a version that fits around a normal job.

Four short tasks, and at the end of them you have an inventory, a registry listing, an expiration calendar and a staff who have seen the device. That is a program. The month before, it was equipment.

What To Do With This

Check the foundation's event list for something near your site and forward it to your staff. Then take the fifteen minutes to write down what you own and put it on the map, so that a dispatcher talking to a frightened caller in your building has something to point at.

We have specialized in AEDs and AED program management since 2003, and it is our only business. If you need help finding a model or serial number on a device you are standing in front of, call us at 888-541-2337.

Related Reading

• Is Your AED On The Map? How AED Registration Connects Your Device To 911
• Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month: A Four-Week AED Readiness Plan for Any Facility
• How Far Is Too Far? What AED Placement Research Says About Your Building

Sources And Further Reading

• PR Newswire, September 23, 2026 — Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation To Host Nationwide Ready To Respond Training Program In October
• Kentucky Lantern, September 25, 2026 — Commentary: There's an easy way to save lives from sudden cardiac arrest, by Sarah Katzenmaier
• PulsePoint — National Emergency AED and Resource Registry

Event details, counts and dates in this article are as reported by the sources listed above on the dates shown, and may change. The Ready to Respond sessions are public awareness training and are not a substitute for a certification course or for any training requirement that applies to your facility. This article is not legal or medical advice and does not replace your state's AED requirements or a manufacturer's instructions for use.