Mt. SAC donated five ventilators from the respiratory therapy program to the state of California’s stockpile due to the coronavirus, known formally as COVID-19, pandemic.

The respiratory therapy program helps students prepare for careers in treating patients with breathing issues or disorders.

Respiratory therapy professor James Hutchinson initially proposed the idea to fellow respiratory therapy professors Kelly Coreas and Mary-Rose Wiesner, who agreed and helped arrange the donation.

Hutchinson said that he had the spark because he was seeing the number of ventilators being reported and wanted to help out.

“It looks like we’re going to run out of ventilators in the worst case scenario,” he said.

However, Hutchinson said that it now seems that the state has enough ventilators, as California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Monday, April 6, that the state would donate 500 ventilators to the national stockpile.

Representatives picked up the ventilators from Mt. SAC on Friday, April 3, three days before Newsom’s announcement. The Mt. SAC Respiratory Therapy program’s Facebook page shared a post that same day.

“5 ventilators ready to be donated to the state of California,” the post stated. “We are in this together!”