Through advocacy, education and awareness, Julie is helping create lasting change in the fight against sudden cardiac arrest.
Julie is a paid spokesperson for Bristol Myers Squibb.
Peyton Walker was a vibrant 19-year-old who was active and adventurous. When she died unexpectedly from sudden cardiac arrest resulting from an underlying heart condition, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, her family was left searching for answers.
What made Peyton's death especially devastating was that there had been no warning signs. Julie, Peyton’s mother, learned that many families know little about sudden cardiac arrest in young people until it affects someone they love.
Since founding the Peyton Walker Foundation, Julie has helped expand access to heart screenings, CPR training and automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in communities across the region. These efforts are helping schools, coaches, students and families become better prepared to recognize and respond to cardiac emergencies.
Julie's advocacy also helped lead to the passage of Peyton's Law in Pennsylvania, creating lasting change through requirements for sudden cardiac arrest education, annual coach training and greater public awareness. Today, Peyton's legacy reaches far beyond her own community.
Watch Julie’s commitment to ensuring that no family faces the heartbreak of losing a child to a detectable and treatable heart condition.
My daughter Peyton was only 19. We didn't get to say goodbye.
I'm Julie Walker, president and Peyton's mom for the Peyton Walker Foundation.
It was one of those perfect fall mornings. And then my husband's cell phone rang. It was a nurse from the emergency department at the hospital, and she was calling to say that our daughter had just been brought in in full cardiac arrest. How does a kid have a cardiac arrest? What is happening? What's going on? And we pulled into the parking lot at Wilkes-Barre hospital.
And as we did, I noticed there were two priests standing right inside the emergency room doorway. And that was the moment I knew. And they delivered the news that we lost Peyton to sudden cardiac arrest. About five weeks later, I finally had the courage to open up the bag of clothes that she had been wearing the day she passed away.
And as I pulled out of the bag, this long-sleeve red T-shirt and started to read what was on it. Every hair on my body stood on end because it said, what we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others in the world remains and is immortal. So it was at that moment that I knew this is it.
We have to do something with this. So my husband and I decided to start the Peyton Walker Foundation. Really? To save other families from this devastation that we live with for the rest of our lives. We have trained and taught hundreds of thousands of people how to do CPR, how to use an AED, and we're so, so proud of that because we know we've had so many lives saved through that work.
An AED, or defibrillator, that we had donated to a local skating rink had just been used to save the life of a ten year old little girl. That's enough. If I don't accomplish one more thing in this lifetime of the work that I'm doing for Peyton's legacy, that story is enough. I never imagined the legacy would grow to what it has become.
We're making a national imprint. More and more people are going to know who Peyton Walker is and the impact that she's had on this world.
That's why We Won't Lose.
Because your story can help inspire another.
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