Audit Report on the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation’s Compliance with Local Law 57 for the Baseball Games and Practices Played at Ballfields in City Parks

Commotio cordis, a potentially lethal disruption of heart rhythm that occurs as a result of a blow to the area directly over the heart, is the second-highest cause of death in athletes younger than 14, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.  It typically involves young, predominantly male, athletes who experience sudden blunt trauma to the chest and often results in cardiac arrest and/or sudden death.  Baseball is the most common sport in which this condition occurs, and nearly all incidents are caused by direct baseball strikes to the left chest wall.  The American Academy of Pediatrics indicates that children 5 to 14 years old are vulnerable to this type of blunt chest impact because their chest walls are relatively elastic and easily compressed.  Early treatment CPR and the increased availability and use of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) result in a decrease of fatalities.

In 2016, the City enacted Local Law 57 in an effort to make AEDs and adults trained to operate them available at all youth league baseball games and practices on City-owned baseball fields, to the extent allowed by the appropriation of sufficient City funds.

This audit was conducted to determine whether the Department of Parks and Recreation (Parks), is in compliance with Local Law 57 related to its responsibilities for the distribution of AED units to youth leagues playing at the baseball fields in City Parks and City-funded AED training courses, free of charge, to the designated youth league representatives.  Under Local Law 57, the free AED training courses provided by Parks “shall be limited to the appropriation of funds available for this program.”  To ensure that free training would be distributed equitably “until such funds are exhausted,” Parks established guidelines that allow “up to two” representatives from each youth league team to receive that training underwritten by Parks.

The audit found that Parks generally complied with Local Law 57 in discharging its responsibilities for the distribution of AED units and the provision of training courses to the youth leagues that play and practice baseball on the City ballfields under Parks’ jurisdiction.  However, we found that Parks did not obtain sufficient information from the participants in the AED training courses to determine whether the youth leagues followed Parks’ instruction to designate up to two representatives from each team for that training.

The audit recommended that Parks: (1) include a column on its roster for attendees at AED training courses to require identification of the specific team affiliation of each youth league representative attending the free training; and (2) use the new team-affiliation information to ensure that the youth leagues allocate City-funded AED training slots to a sufficient number of teams to enable the leagues, where practicable, to have at least one AED-qualified adult present at each baseball game and practice held on a Parks-managed ballfield, as required by Local Law 57.