(WJAR) — No matter the day, course, or hole, behind every swing Betsy Casey takes, there’s a memory of her late husband David.
“I think about him all the time,” she said while golfing at Alpine Country Club. “I know he’s with me every day. No matter what we did for vacations even on our honeymoon We actually had to make sure there was always golf involved.”
They were married nearly 20 years before he passed in 2023
“It was just like any other day,” she said. “He left I said ‘Goodbye. I love you. Hit ’em straight’ and that was it.”
The 58-year-old had a heart attack at the 18th hole of the Cranston Country Club and spent hours in and out of cardiac arrest.
“Dave Casey was a childhood friend. We used to golf pretty much once a week together,” Bob Rebussini, who still golfs with Betsy, said. “It’s so sad to think that he had an opportunity to be here right now so It angers me to some extent.”
There was no Automatic External Defibrillator, or AED, on site.
“The job of the AED through an electrical current is to restart the heart,” Lisa Tamburini, a first aid instructor said. “AEDs are user friendly They were designed that way so that someone without training could actually use an AED.”
Heart attacks are among the leading causes of death on a golf course and until this month, AEDs weren’t required on courses in Rhode Island.
It took two years, but Besty changed that– golf courses are now among the places in Rhode Island required to have an AED on site.
“It’s like David’s death wasn’t…like this is like his legacy like he left something and especially to a sport that he loved,” she said of the law she spent two years advocating for.
At Alpine Country Club, they’re already in compliance with the David Casey Act with AEDs scattered around the property so no one’s ever more than 30 seconds away from help.
“I believe every country club should get on board with this program because it’s happened here. It’s happened at Cranston. It could happen anywhere,” Club President Ken Cascella said. “It would have given David a fighting chance and he didn’t have that chance and so at least now we can give others a fighting chance,” Betsy said. “If we save one life on the course, we’ve made a difference.”
