During a tournament in Cleveland this past season, players, coaches and parents acted with care and quick action to help save the life of one of our player's uncles.
The Bantam AE Team was at the Cleveland Rock and Roll tournament on the weekend of November 22-25, 2018.
Following a tough game against a team from Nashville, we proceeded to the dressing room for a post game discussion.
During the boys taking their time and getting AXE fresh, the door of the dressing room had flung open and in a panic the assistant coach began to yell that I was needed in the lobby. I had thought that the parents had begun to have an argument in the lobby after the game. As I proceeded out from the room, Jodie Nugent had met me half way and yelled that Chris is doing "C" and the panicked look on her face I knew that there was a serious issue. I proceeded to run a little faster and I turned the corner and there I saw Chris starting compressions and the crowd gathering. In the meantime, my wife was already on the phone getting the 911 call in.
As Chris started compressions, I obtained the defibrillator. I opened the red box (after having to figure out how to) and grabbed the set of pediatric pads inside. We applied the pads, turned the machine on, and for those who have never used one of these machines it feels like an eternity and maybe one of us did have a few choice words for it. In the meantime, I had instructed my son Marc to run back to the dressing room and get our trainers kit so that we had access to scissors and other required items such as gloves. Marc had never ran so fast and played and integral part. We had given 1 shock and continued CPR when a nurse appeared and stated she would do some breaths. We had provided her with a barrier. After another half round of CPR, the patient began to reach up and regain color. We immediately placed the patient on his side, and as we know...what goes in must come out, and he had vomited twice. We had settled the patient closely monitoring the patient's pulse and as we turned, the EMS crew and fire department arrived who were the crew that transported our young player earlier in the game. We assisted in loading the patient and following out to the ambulance where they continued to their care for the patient. The patient was transported to the Cleveland Clinic
It was one heck of a night, we then met with the players of the hockey team and gathered them as our Eagles Hockey Family and answered any questions they had which took a wide variety of turns. We ended coming in second that weekend but the boys truly grew as a family.
Article written by Pete Morassutti