David L. Finlayson

LCpl David Finlayson was the picture of health when he enlisted in the Marines in 2011. He served with the 1/3 Marines as an assaultman, and he never missed his target. David was a delightful young man who could turn any miserable experience into a funny story. While on a five-mile training run with his battalion in Hawaii, his heart went into a bad rhythm and he collapsed. Efforts to resuscitate him failed. David died on 7 November, 2013, at age 25.

We still don’t know exactly what caused his heart to stop. Autopsy showed that his heart was structurally normal, but David had never had an electrocardiogram (ECG) that might have revealed some kind of electrical disorder.

It is in David’s honor that we have started the Lion Heart Heroes Foundation. Sudden Cardiac Arrest is the leading cause of non-traumatic death in military populations and specifically among recruits in training. Yet current screening protocols at Military Entrance Processing Stations (MEPS) do not include an ECG for heart health. In David’s honor, we seek to “keep military hearts beating!”