Training hospitality students to save lives

By Joel Delgado ’12 MS ’17 

After graduating with her master’s degree from FIU in 2013, Analise Dlugasch applied for a position at the Office of Donor Relations. As she was getting ready to go to her job interview, the two-time FIU graduate was not sure what she was going to say, so she asked her mother, Lucie, for advice.

“I told her to speak from her heart. I asked her ‘why do you want this job?’” Lucie recalled. “She said ‘I want to commit to something. I want to commit to FIU.’ She was a proud Panther.”

Analise Dlugasch was a two-time FIU Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management graduate and one of the founders of the FIU Equestrian student club.

Analise got the job. But tragedy struck one night in November 2014 when Analise was having dinner with a friend at a restaurant and began to choke. No one was able to help her as they waited for an ambulance. She spent four months in coma and, on Feb. 27, 2015, she passed away from complications.

Now, Analise’s family and FIU are working together to try and prevent similar tragedies from happening with the FIU Hospitality Emergency Alert & Response Training (HEART).

The program, which officially launched Sept. 22 with the training of approximately 150 hospitality management students and a dedication reception at Biscayne Bay Campus, was established with funding from the Analise Dlugasch Memorial Endowment and approved by the American Heart Association. It will equip participants with the core basic skills of CPR and choking relief and will be rolled out in three phases.

“Everyone who met Analise loved her,” said Diann Newman, associate dean of student services at the Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management. “She was enthusiastic about life and her memory will live on. She was a very special person and we are so glad that we are able to honor her with this program.”

During the first phase, the program aims to teach these skills to every hospitality management student at FIU. The generous donation made by the Dlugasch family and friends and the American Heart Association will allow 2,000 hospitality management students to be trained by the end of the 2016-2017 academic year.

A hospitality student practices CPR during the inaugural training session of the FIU HEART program on Sept. 22.

The training would be expanded in the second phase to train the entire FIU community, including students, faculty and staff.

The ultimate goal of the program will be realized in the third and final phase: having the program adopted by the entire hospitality industry in South Florida.

“Our message is the first responder in an emergency isn’t the fire fighters or the ambulance – the first responder is the person next to you,” Lucie said. “This is bigger than anything we anticipated. This is beyond us.”

Choking is the fourth leading cause of unintentional injury death according to Injury Facts 2016, with 4,864 people dying due to choking in 2013.

FIU is hoping the program will prepare its students, faculty and staff to prevent death and disability due to choking and cardiac arrest and set a new safety standard for South Florida’s hospitality industry.

At the training of the inaugural class, students were taught how to perform CPR, use an automated external defibrillator (AED) and provide choking relief during the Family & Friends CPR Anytime Personal Learning Program, which allows anyone to learn the core skills of CPR in 20 minutes.

Each student was given a training kit, one of 1,000 donated to FIU by the American Heart Association. They received guidance during the class from Assistant Director of the Department of Environmental Health & Safety Wilfredo Alvarez and junior hospitality student Vivek Somani, the first student ambassador for this initiative.

Before being approached to be a student ambassador for the program, Somani didn’t know how to perform CPR. Now he wants to share what he’s learned with the entire school.

“It’s amazing how Analise’s family was able to turn something so tragic into something meaningful and proactive,” Somani said. “I’m not a health care professional or a doctor, but if at least I can be an advocate, then I can do my part and help people learn how to take action if they ever find themselves in those situations.”

At the dedication reception, a certificate of recognition to mark the establishment of the FIU HEART program was presented to Analise’s parents, Lucie and Philip Dlugasch – the culmination of months of work and collaboration.

For more information on the FIU HEART program, visit their website.