Year in Review

She fights for healthy hearts

Susan Gruen Helsinger is the Herald's Person of the Year

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In 1985, Jason Gruen’s friends and family knew that he was an honors student at Manhasset High School. They knew he was looking into Princeton, and wanted to be an optical physicist. They could see his dimpled face, brushed with optimism and youth. What they didn’t know — what they couldn’t see — was the heart condition that abruptly took his life when he walked into school one morning.

Thirty-one years later, his mother, Susan Helsinger, sat in a conference room at the Douglas Elliman Real Estate office on Merrick Road, where she works, for an interview with the Herald. Helsinger founded the Jason F. Gruen Foundation to ensure that as many young people as possible are tested for congenital heart defects. As she spoke about her past and bringing heart screenings to local schools, she beamed, knowing that the foundation’s work has saved young people’s lives.

For this reason, and many more, we proudly name Helsinger the Herald’s 2016 Person of the Year.

In 2012, Kaitlyn Paeth was a member of Merrick Avenue Middle School’s kickline team. She received a free heart screening at her school one morning, funded by the Jason Gruen Foundation. Paeth was diagnosed with hyperthropic cardiomyopathy, the same disease that took Jason’s life. She had to stop playing sports and instead turned to writing poetry.

“She’s had to have a different kind of life,” Helsinger said.

Helsinger has a background as a nurse, but didn’t see it being her long-term career choice. Instead, she said, “I have a knack for seeing how to start, run and end a business.” When she was 24, she founded Gruen Optika Corporation of New York City with her husband at the time, and a decade later she and a friend opened the Hi-D and Su-Z Toy Store in Great Neck.

Her second life began two weeks after Jason died, when her husband left her because she reminded him too much of their son. Helsinger said she wanted to make sure that other parents did not suffer as she had. “It changes you,” she said. “You’re not the same person. I’m not the same person.”

During Jason’s shiva, Helsinger’s close friends and family gathered at her house and started collecting money to put into a temporary fund. Thus began the foundation that bears Jason’s name.

Helsinger’s organization immediately went to work donating funds to a grant for research into cardiac abnormalities at Deborah Heart and Lung Center in New Jersey. She worked with Dr. Fred Bierman, of Cohen’s Children Hospital, to figure out where to send her funds next. They came up with a plan to send cardiologists to a conference in Italy, the only country that provides free heart screenings for all of its children, and in 1988 the foundation helped fund construction of the Children’s Heart Center at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, which is now up and running.

After Jason’s death, Helsinger left both of her businesses and went back to school. She studied at Adelphi University to become a paralegal and earn her real estate license. In 1986, when her last name was still Gruen, she met Jay Helsinger and persuaded him to go into real estate with her. They married and moved to Merrick that August. In 1992 they started operating the Custom Real Estate Group, with a central office on Merrick Road, which later became Douglas Elliman.

That same year, their son Connor was born. With the help of her foundation, Helsinger made sure he had a healthy heart. Connor, now 24, has a passion for music, and plays drums in a rock band called Bad Dog.

Ten years ago, Helsinger and Bierman came up with the idea of doing cardiac screenings in public schools, including echocardiograms and electrocardiograms, which can detect abnormalities like the one that killed Jason. “I always thought we should do more for our children,” she said, noting that if Jason had gone through this testing, she would have known about his heart problem and he might still be alive today.

After careful preparations, the foundation tried to hold screenings in Manhasset, where Jason went to school. Helsinger was sure the school would remember what happened to him and would agree to her proposal. But administrators worried that the district might be held liable if a child was found to have a heart abnormality and his or her parents did nothing about it.

In 2006, Helsinger contacted Charles Fuschillo Jr., who was then a state senator and is now president and CEO of the Alzheimer’s Foundation. They went to the Bellmore-Merrick School District together, and wouldn’t leave until their proposal was accepted. Merrick Avenue and Grand Avenue middle schools were the first to hold screenings for eighth-graders. The foundation tested 200 children and found three with major heart issues.

Helsinger explained that a muscle blockage can prevent electrical impulses from passing through the heart and could, in extreme circumstances, stop it from beating. Treatment in these circumstances may include open-heart surgery or the insertion of a pacemaker. Most often, those who are afflicted must adjust to new habits so they don’t put too much pressure on the heart. The first step, however, is to find out whether a student has a condition while he or she is still young.

“Each time [Helsinger] has brought [the screenings] in, we have found something — some were minor, others significant,” said Calhoun High School nurse Cynthia Johnson, noting that “a couple were life-threatening.”

Connor Helsinger, who was there when his mother started the screenings, said, “It’s one of those incredible things where you know you’re saving lives.” A graduate of Merrick Avenue Middle School, he said he was glad to see it open its doors to the screenings year after year.

Johnson said that schools across the county should be required to provide screenings “before these kids start playing sports.” The screenings have since been added in the Long Beach, Valley Stream, Great Neck and Jericho school districts.

The Jason Gruen Foundation continues to fund research into heart conditions such as cardiomyopathy and idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis. The organization’s most recent endeavor involves a study to determine whether these abnormalities are genetic.