Julie West turned her nightmare into a force for good. In honor of her late son Jake, West fights for education, early detection, and awareness of undetected heart diseases in children because she knows Jake would have done the same.
In 2013, Jake passed away while at football practice due to an undetected heart condition. Jake was a vibrant, outgoing 17 year old who dedicated himself to his sports and passed every physical with flying colors, making West’s mission of awareness so much more important.
“As a parent, you want to get your children involved with things and exercise is good for them. Jake was always so active. All the more reason why we need to be screening out children because we don’t know the condition of their heart,” West said.
After Jake’s passing, West learned that the condition Jake had was hereditary.
“We were told to get our entire family tested. So we went through all of that and come to find out that Jake’s older sister, Courtney, has the same condition,” West said. “The cardiologist told both Courtney and I ‘your brother saved your life.’”
Not long after learning Courtney also had an undetected heart condition, West decided she needed to do something to stop the same thing happening to more children, to more families.
“I went to Chicago Hope Academy to do a heart screening because I thought, ‘I need to learn more, I need to figure this out. So I went to that and I volunteered,” West said. “It took very little time that day to realize that this is what we needed to bring back to Indiana and see how we can screen kids in this area. That’s how we formed Jake’s nonprofit foundation.”
The foundation created by West in honor of Jake is named the Play for Jake Foundation, which specializes in bringing awareness about early heart screenings as well as education on AEDs.
“At first we focused strictly on heart screenings, because in my mind we should be proactive, we can catch it before something bad happens. We just screened as many kids as we could,” West said.
Further down the road, West began to expand Jake’s Foundation to also focus on AED education to help further the foundation’s reach.
“We’re not going to be able to screen every child, so we thought what else can we do?” West said. “So we started to get more involved with AED awareness and donating AEDs to different organizations.”
With AEDs on site, those who may suffer from a heart condition can have a higher chance of survival. Jake’s Foundation’s focus on AEDs heightened during the COVID-19 pandemic as children were not in school to be tested.
“It really opened our eyes on the importance of AEDs. We found some with dead batteries, some behind closed doors, some tucked away. So we began to focus on that since we couldn’t screen the kids during COVID,” West said.
However, screenings are still a large part of the Play for Jake Foundation. In July, West teamed up with Theresa Mago, who lost her son Zac in his sleep to sudden cardiac arrest, to host a large-scale heart screening in La Porte. The initiative was called Team 265, 26 for Jake’s football number and 5 for Zac’s basketball number.
West is dedicated to her work in large part because she knows it is exactly what Jake would have done.
“I get up everyday and I think to myself, ‘What would Jake do?’” West said, “I am just trying to keep another family from feeling what my family feels. If we’re screening kids there’s going to be conditions that are detected and lives will be saved.”
West has also brought this awareness to a state level, working with state legislatures to pass bills to help save families and kids from undetected heart conditions.
“I went and testified in front of the State House and Senate. We were able to get a small change but we are not done yet,” West said. “I plan to go next year to fight for bigger changes, but we also helped to bring awareness to the representatives which is a start, its just one step at a time.”
West continues to fight for awareness and change, just as she knows Jake would have done. She credits knowing what Jake would do, as well as her faith, in helping her through the hard days.
“When I think of what Jake would do, it helps me stay focused,” West said. “I also draw my strength from God. I know without a doubt that one day I will be with Jake one day and it will be forever.”
When she is not fighting for change and spreading awareness, West enjoys time with her family and her two Beagles, Abby and Peyton, Peyton being a gift from Jake’s friends the Christmas after Jake passed.
With the help of his mother, Jake is continuing to make a difference in his community.