Mark, a Life Scout with Troop 86 in Cold Spring, was looking for a community leadership project to complete his Eagle Scout requirements. After the death of 15-year-old Justin Saccone last year, Mark presented the defibrillator idea to his school and was encouraged to pursue it.

Mark Bailey, 15, has raised money (and worked for an Eagle Scout badge) to buy a defibrillator for Villa Madonna. (Enquirer photo/CRAIG RUTTLE)

"This is really the first project I've ever done that's been this involved," said Mark.

In September 2003, Justin was hit in the chest with a baseball during a Knothole game at Pendery Park in Melbourne. He died from commotio cordis, a rare occurrence in which low-impact, blunt trauma to the chest disrupts the heart's electrical system, sending the victim into cardiac arrest. A defibrillator renders an electrical shock to get the heart back into rhythm, but needs to be done in three to five minutes of the person's collapse.

"Justin's tragic accident opened a lot of people's eyes, that it can happen to anybody," said Laura Randall, executive director of Northern Kentucky Emergency Medical Services. "I really believe if they'd had a defibrillator there, he'd be alive today."

Pendery Park has four of them now, thanks to the Justin Allan Saccone Memorial Fund. The fund has donated 17 defibrillators to schools and parks in the area, including one to Villa Madonna after hearing about Mark's effort to acquire one. The school will keep one in the main building and one in the gym.

Mark is raising money from doctors to pay for the defibrillator. He was presented with a plaque by Northern Kentucky EMS Friday morning. After the presentation, 50 teachers and administrative staff took a three-hour class learning how to use the devices.

"These are the positive pieces that help us keep Justin's memory alive," said Ruth Saccone, Justin's grandmother and director of the fund.

The device weighs only a few pounds. The box provides instructions, telling the user when to administer a shock and if CPR is being performed correctly.

Randall said that less than 5 percent of cardiac arrest victims survive without a defibrillator. She said the survival rate could increase to 60-70 percent when one is used.

In the last year, Northern Kentucky EMS has sold 124 defibrillators to 36 schools and parks in the region, thanks to a program that allows it to sell the devices to schools for 35 to 50 percent off the $2,119 list price.

Saccone said she gets about a call a week from someone wanting one. She hopes to find corporations to help support the fund, which has about $40,000 today.

"This is Justin's legacy," Saccone said.

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E-mail wcroyle@enquirer.com