What is the hardest class you have going on right now?

No doubt, without a question, my stats class for communications. I mean I am in communications for a reason, and one of those reasons was that clearly communications does not involve numbers and equations. But who knew Comm. 228 was one of the hardest classes at this school?

Some things in school are just irrelevant.

Exactly, I would love to know when I am going to perform a z-score, t-test, chi-square or like variance at any time in my future.

Sounds like you are drowning in the sea of statistics.

No kidding. There is just so much more to life …

Like what?

Well, I work for the (Steven M.) Gootter Foundation in Tucson and being there has kind of showed me more to life.

What does the foundation do?

Their mission is to save lives by defeating sudden cardiac death, by promoting awareness and education about it — stuff like that. Basically a lot of the funds go towards helping people get the defibrillators, the shock tools that everyone sees on television, and they have a surgery where people get one in their chest to prevent sudden cardiac death.

Wow, so basically you guys work to get awareness about how deaths are caused?

Yeah, it’s not a very talked about subject among all the health concerns out there today. So, it’s a great foundation to get people involved and aware because it is an awful death.

That’s awesome.

Yeah, it all started from Steve Gootter, who lost his life without warning, and his family wants to help spare the rest of the world from tragic times.

How many lives does cardiac arrest take?

I think our website says it take(s) 900 lives a day.

Do you guys have any events that really involve UA students?

There is the Gootter Grand Slam every spring, basically like a tennis tournament fundraiser where anyone can come out and play a couple matches and learn about cardiac death. They also have a nice gala dinner and auction to raise money and get donors more educated. Steve was a famous tennis player, hence the tennis theme.

Have you ever won the tournament?

(Laughs) God, no. But it’s a lot of fun and the event helps us out so much.

— Caroline Nachazel