Mommy The Boyus Are Fighting Again

LAPORTE —  Jake West sent a text to his mom. The D-line wanted to go to Buffalo Wild Wings after football practice and he didn't have enough money.

Of course, Julie West idea. He'd probably bought 2 lunches that day or perhaps chipped in to buy a buddy an actress slice of pizza.

"Could you bring me some money momma?" the 17-year-sometime linebacker asked.

Julie pulled into the LaPorte High football parking lot earlier practice on that fall solar day, Sept. 25, 2013, with some extra cash for Jake.

In that location he was, walking up with a smile on his face. There he was, hanging into her rider window, asking how she was, grabbing the money. There he was, all six feet of him ready to practice, his usual, happy self.

"He goes, 'Thanks momma, I beloved you'" said Julie. "And I said, 'I beloved you also.'"

Julie is and then grateful now that Jake needed money that afternoon, so grateful she got to run into him alive one concluding fourth dimension.

***

Zac Mago was asleep the morn of July 5, 2018. He'd spent the solar day before at a July Fourth parade with his girlfriend, running errands for his mom at Lowe'due south, then enjoying a night at the lake, playing euchre and cornhole, watching fireworks and jumping into the water off a rooftop.

His mom Teresa Mago peeked in on Zac sleeping in his bed virtually 7:30 a.m.

There he was, her middle child, the glue that bonded his older sis and younger brother together. The 17-year-old standout John Glenn High basketball player. The go-getter who planned to accept over his mom's manufacturing business organization subsequently college.

At that place he was asleep, one week shy of his 18th birthday, so peaceful.

Teresa will never forget the way Zac looked in that moment. Information technology would be the last fourth dimension she'd see her son alive.

***

Mark Mayfield had begged his mom to allow him live with his older sister just a mile away from his parents' dwelling house. He was 17, later on all. As long as he could get himself upwards 30 days straight, he could brand the motility, she told him.

The morning of Jan. 23, 2017, Diane Mayfield was texting her son before school. "Are you up?" Yes, he was up. Marking had a large day. It was offseason for the baseball game star at New Prairie High, so he was playing an intramural basketball afterwards schoolhouse.

Diane meant to text him again that mean solar day, had wanted to text him again, but she was working at Starbucks and didn't get the chance.

Diane is thankful now for that early on morn exchange with Mark. It was one of those usual conversations that parents accept for granted. Diane will never take that conversation for granted.

Information technology would exist the last fourth dimension she would ever talk to Mark.

'He was gone. They were all gone'

Jake Due west never got to go with the D-line for dinner, for chicken wings and baskets of fries. After his mom left, he headed to practice.

During a play, Jake collapsed on the field.

Julie was home, exterior, and had left her cell phone in the business firm. When she came in, she saw a missed telephone call from the LaPorte coach, who left a bulletin. "Jake is down on the field." She tried to call back, only didn't go an answer.

"So, I just jumped in my machine and flew, of form, like a crazy woman and got in that location," she said, "and he was already in the ambulance."

Julie tried to go to Jake but medical personnel wouldn't let her. Jake needed to exist rushed to the infirmary. At the emergency room, law officers had to hold Julie back.

"It was horrible. All y'all could practise was beg, beg. That's all we did. And they worked a very, very, very long time on him," Julie said.  "Just they weren't able to save him."

***

Zac Mago got upward that morning of July 5, after his mom had peeked in on him. He and his sis Jillian went to their grandma's for breakfast. Zac didn't swallow as he commonly did, not like a 6-5, 200-pound athlete ordinarily eats.

After breakfast, Zac was supposed to accept his grandma shopping, but he called Teresa and said he didn't feel well. He went up to his room to slumber.

After that afternoon when Teresa came home, Jillian went upstairs with their aunt Tonya to tease Zac. "Ha, ha mom's home. You've got to get up now." Zac didn't budge.

Jillian rolled Zac over. He was blue and not breathing. She screamed "Telephone call 911." Teresa raced upstairs to his room, called 911 and helped Tonya go Zac off the bed. Tonya started CPR with the operator helping to guide her.

"And he was gone," Teresa said. "We were too late."

***

Marker Mayfield had just played difficult in that intramural basketball game game; he never did anything halfway, said his mom. He walked off the court and down the hall to get a drink.

"And I remember, 'Why didn't I requite him a water to accept with him or something?'" Diane said.

Marking collapsed going to go that drink. A friend found him.

Diane had simply gotten home from work and got a phone call. Mark had collapsed and was unconscious. People were intervening, trying to help. Diane wanted to get to the school, only she wanted to stay on the phone, likewise.

"Is he upward yet? is he upward yet?" she kept asking. "No, they're working on him. They're working on him."

"And then we but raced out of at that place," she said.

Mark was already in the ambulance when Diane got to the school. At the infirmary, she went to his room.

"They were just catastrophe CPR," she said. "And then they just left him in that location for us to be with him."

To say goodbye.

'Kids in the prime number of their lives'

Jake, Zac and Marker all died of sudden cardiac arrest. All unexpected. All their deaths possibly preventable, say their moms.

"Undetected eye weather were not on our radar at all considering we had healthy boys," said Julie. "They passed every physical and never complained."

In its simplest explanation, sudden cardiac arrest is the abrupt loss of heart function, breathing and consciousness. The condition commonly results from a trouble with the heart'due south electrical system, which disrupts the eye'southward ability to pump and stops blood flow to the body.

"Sudden cardiac arrest is the fatal abort when the heart stops beating," said Richard Kovacs, a cardiologist with IU Health. "And that requires firsthand attending or the athlete dies."

In loftier school athletes, sudden cardiac arrest is the No. 1 cause of death. But stats on how prevalent information technology is vary greatly, depending on the research, ranging from one in xl,000 to 1 in 80,000.

"The point is it's very rare only even though information technology'southward rare, it's tragic," said Adam Kean, cardiologist and electrophysiologist with Riley Children'southward Wellness. "But information technology's tragic in a much more personal way. Kids in the prime of their lives who are often in prime health and, in front of anybody, they get down suddenly. And that is incredibly emotional and traumatic to deal with."

Sudden cardiac arrest has many causes. Amongst them are coronary artery disease, eye set on, enlarged eye, valvular middle illness, a middle defect present at birth and electrical problems in the centre. Sometimes, an accidental blow to the chest can also cease the heart.

The symptoms of sudden cardiac arrest, unfortunately, overlap with what many athletes experience almost every day, said Kovacs. Shortness of breath, chest hurting, a very fast heartbeat.

Athletes routinely push themselves and many may feel those types of symptoms now so, said Kovacs.

What he worries about, said Kovacs, are the unusual symptoms. A player who is short of breath doing something he wasn't short of breath doing in the past. A racing eye for no reason. Or breast pain that is unusual, non a muscle pain, simply a pain deep down inside.

"If your son or daughter has symptoms that don't seem right, go get them evaluated," he said. "Their life is more valuable than their participation in next calendar week's scrimmage."

The risk of suffering sudden cardiac arrest is 10 times higher during practice or play, Kovacs said, considering the heart has to work harder. About ii,000 people younger than 25 die each twelvemonth from sudden cardiac arrest, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. There is no breakdown of how many of those are loftier school athletes.

Ane athlete is likewise many, say the moms of Jake, Zac and Mark.

These moms are on a mission to raise awareness of sudden cardiac abort, its signs and symptoms, to push for AEDs in schools and on sports fields, to abet CPR training and eye screenings for athletes.

"We don't want any other family to feel what we experience," Julie said.

"Sometimes I say, 'Is this my world? Is this really my globe?'" Teresa said.

"If Mark was my only child, I don't know if I'd exist here, honestly," said Diane.

Their boys are gone. Simply these moms want the stories of their sons to exist heard, the stories of young men who were just starting out in life, the stories of three 17-year-former seemingly healthy athletes who died.

Jake: 'He had my heart, e'er'

Jake died of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), a illness of the eye musculus. When fatty, fibrous tissue replaces normal heart muscle, this interrupts normal electrical signals in the heart and may cause irregular and potentially life-threatening eye rhythms.

Jake was one of two children, the baby brother to older sister Courtney. Growing up, he was always involved with sports, always outside playing with his friends.

"Then equally a mother yous retrieve, 'Kids are exterior playing, they're healthy, you desire them exercising,'" said Julie.

Jake played varsity football and lacrosse. He made goofy videos with friends. He was hilarious, his mom said, and could light upwards whatsoever room. He was also a bit of a momma's male child, often writing trivial notes to Julie.

"I tell you, he had my heart e'er," she said. "He but was a little protector."

After Jake died, Julie asked for an autopsy.

"That just kind of makes yous ill to call up about that. He's 17," she said. "But I thought, 'Well, I need to know. At that place's got to be something, something that nosotros obviously did not grab.'"

When the autopsy came back that Jake had ARVC, an undetected heart condition, Julie was in daze.

"He made it through every physical, never a sign or symptom," she said. "Never in a one thousand thousand years would I think anything was incorrect with his middle."

When Jake collapsed an AED, or automatic external defibrillator, wasn't on the field; it was in the motorcoach'due south function. An AED could peradventure have saved Jake'due south life.

An AED is used to help people suffering sudden cardiac arrest. It's a medical device that tin can analyze the heart'due south rhythm and, if necessary, deliver an electrical daze, or defibrillation, to help the heart re-establish the proper rhythm.

"That is something nosotros are all working toward," Julie said, "getting those AEDs correct there on the field and readily available."

For Jake, there was no heart history, no family eye history. But after his death, the Wests were tested and they learned there was.

Courtney was in higher when her brother died. She, too, was an athlete, a volleyball thespian who had never had whatsoever signs or symptoms. Within a month and a half of losing Jake, Courtney learned she had the exact same status as her brother.

Doctors implanted a subcutaneous cardioverter defibrillator, an electronic device to constantly monitor her heart rhythm. The cardiologist told Courtney that Jake had saved her life.

"And I think that was hard on her because then she had to alive with that," said Julie. "She'southward similar, 'Mom, why Jake? Why non me?' I said, 'Well God has his programme.' For the love of God, I can't explicate that one."

In her testing, Julie found she, too, had a eye condition chosen Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, meaning she had an extra electric pathway betwixt her middle'south upper and lower chambers that causes a rapid heartbeat.

Julie had been an athlete her entire life, playing sand volleyball as a setter.

"I idea annihilation that I would feel playing was normal to me," she said. "Only as I got older, after running a play, I'd get done and I recall my heart racing."

Julie attributed the feeling to existence out of shape. She knows at present she was wrong.

"I could take died anytime," she said. "I don't want to say I wish I would have, just I would die before my children. We all would give our lives right now for our children."

Jake's story shows only how important heart screenings are for athletes. If Julie had had one, she might have saved Jake's life. But she can't alive in a world of what-ifs. She tries, instead, to live with the wonderful memories of Jake.

And that day in the parking lot, him hanging in her car window, she will never forget.

"I am so grateful for that last, who would have thought that would exist my terminal interaction with him? Just I'm and then grateful," she said. "I have some peace with that. I have to. If not, if you can't discover those little pieces of peace, it's not pretty."

Zac: Witty, smart, fun-loving

Zac died of an enlarged center with fibrosis of the left inductive papillary muscle.

He lived just 17 years, xi months and three weeks, but Zac lived every day as if it were his concluding, said Teresa. He never wasted a moment and he was always looking for the next bit of fun that could be had.

Zac was the middle child of older sister, Jillian, and younger brother, Matthew. He was a mediator and smart, super smart. And witty.

Teresa remembers the family being on a plane headed to holiday when the flight attendant went through the drill of how to secure the oxygen mask. "Secure yours first," she said, "and then pick your child with the most potential and piece of work your way down."

Without missing a trounce, Zac turned to his siblings: "Welp, that'southward me."

Zac was a leader in his grade, ranked in the top x. And he was an athlete. Zac had wanted to play football, also. Merely Teresa, thinking she was shielding him from a more dangerous sport, bribed him. She would pay his AAU basketball fees if he didn't play football.

"And I idea I was protecting him," she said. "Picayune did I know."

Where Zac'due south story is different from Jake's and Mark'due south is that he did have a full heart screening in 2014. Information technology was done after a school concrete where doctors thought they heard a heart murmur. Teresa took Zac to his pediatrician who ordered an EKG and echocardiogram. Everything came back normal.

"And in four years, he was gone," she said. Teresa knows now, Zac should accept gotten screenings every 2 years after his first one, simply she said the family wasn't told that. The evolution of the heart changes equally kids abound. And Zac grew nine inches in 18 months afterward that first centre screening.

"That'south my words to everyone now," Teresa said. "It'southward not one and washed."

Medical professionals pinpointed Zac'due south fourth dimension of death based on his trunk temperature. He had died eighteen minutes earlier his sister found him. Even an AED wouldn't take saved his life; he died in his sleep.

"God had already moved him," Teresa said. "God had moved him before we found him and that's what God wanted." Zac was never taken to a hospital. He was pronounced dead at his dwelling house by the coroner. The family had five minutes to say goodbye.

Zac had so much ahead of him, said his mom, and so many ideas. He and his friends wanted to i day open up a distillery called 8 Idiots Distillery. He had his centre on attending Moonshine University when he was sometime enough. And, afterward college, Zac was to have over Liquid Packaging Solutions in LaPorte from Teresa.

He had worked there during the summers and on breaks. He knew every part of the business concern, which articles packaging equipment for not-carbonated liquids.

It was at her business that Teresa's favorite concluding memory happened with Zac, that 4th of July, the day earlier he died.

After running to Lowe's to go his mom what she needed, Zac came back and asked if he could get her anything else before he headed to the parade.

Teresa joked with him, holding up a Bacardi Breezer bottle. She was out. Could he run and get her more than? He'd love to, Zac said, only...

"And I said, 'Yes, we'd have to get y'all a fake ID,'" Teresa said. "And he had this large effulgent grinning on his confront and he gave me a kiss."

She hugged Zac from behind and told him how much she loved him. Zac told his mom he loved her, too.

Mark: 'He was so sweet and good'

Mark died from arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), due to a genetic center condition.

Marking was sweet, had an infectious grinning and was so kind. If a friend needed anything, Mark was correct at that place to help.

He also loved sports, playing sports and cheering for sports. His favorite squad to root for was his beloved Chicago Cubs. When the team ended their century-long drought and won the World Series in 2016, Mark was ecstatic. He even went to the parade commemoration in Chicago.

Baseball had always been his affair.

By the time Marking was ii years old, he was throwing a Wiffle Ball up and hit it. Diane couldn't believe it. As he grew older, Mark, the fifth of eight children, played every sport. He wrestled, played football and basketball game, but baseball was where he really shined.

On his Piddling League team, Diane remembers Mark making these crazy plays that left his coaches awestruck. If the team was losing, Diane would offer Mark a $xx reward if he got on base of operations. Parents soon started urging Diane to make the offering at games.

His parents always thought he would play baseball in higher but, shortly before he died, Mark told them he didn't want to. Diane wonders now if the exertion was too much, if maybe he was feeling symptoms he wasn't telling them about.

She looks dorsum at the summer before he died, when Mark was playing in a game. He got to second base of operations and stood there bending over, trying to breathe.

It was hot that day and Mark'southward dad had asthma.

"I simply thought information technology was anything just a heart matter," said Diane. Marker had a heart screening just three months before he died, an EKG but not an echocardiogram. The EKG came back clean.

When Diane got the phone call that Marker was down in the hallway after that intramural basketball game, she never imagined a eye upshot. She idea maybe he had hurt his leg or cleaved an ankle.

"Then it's like, 'What?'" Diane said. "We learned, sometimes, the first symptom is death."

An AED wasn't bachelor at the schoolhouse. It might have saved Mark's life.

After Mark died, the family unit constitute out that three of his siblings accept the same gene defect Mark did. They are told not to overexert. Other family members have too learned they have middle conditions.

At the wake, Diane brought Skittles considering they were Mark'due south favorite candy. She left pieces of paper out for people to write their memories of Mark.

There were so many stories of his kind personality, his always doing the right matter.

"He was and then sweet and good," Diane said. "I guess information technology helps to know that. I'd trade places correct now, though, if I could."

Three moms, a teacher fight dorsum

The moms of Jake, Zac and Marker are non going to sit dorsum. Had AEDs been on hand, had they been aware of the signs and symptoms of sudden cardiac abort, had they known the rules on center screenings, their sons might be alive.

They are on a mission to change that for others. "Nosotros were two voices, three voices, then four voices," said Teresa. "Four voices are ameliorate than only our own."

That quaternary voice is Tonya Aerts, a biomedical teacher at Mark's school, New Prairie.  She said the school and community were devastated by Marking's death and she set out to do something nearly it.

The 4 women have been advocating for and offering CPR training, pushing for working AEDs in all places sports are played or practiced and educating students, parents and coaches most the signs and symptoms of sudden cardiac arrest.

Afterward Mark's death, when they went to look for an AED at New Prairie, they institute it with dead batteries, under popcorn by the microwave, locked within the concession stand up.

With Aerts pushing, New Prairie recently became the state's outset Centre Prophylactic School through Project Adam, which helps to implement a plan at schools to respond to a sudden cardiac arrest.

As important as having AEDs on hand and CPR training is the response, said Kean, who is leading the Indiana affiliate of Project Adam.

"In that location are going to be kiddos, even if they do accept the gold standard cardiac workup, who are going to suffer sudden cardiac arrest," he said. "Having the people on the field or the court who know what to practise?"

It'south crucial. The best chance for an athlete to survive a sudden cardiac arrest is when bystanders respond — not when EMS gets to the scene.

One of the beginning hurdles to become over is the average person's fear of using an AED, said Aerts. People worry about the device giving a stupor to someone who doesn't need it; it won't. They worry they take to exist medical personnel to utilise it; they don't. There are step-by-step instructions on the device.

"If you go grab the AED and you don't demand it, put it dorsum, no trouble," said Aerts. "Anyone can take hold of it. The 4th grader can grab it. Merely get information technology."

Julie and Teresa accept set up foundations that offering heart screenings and CPR training in honor of their sons. After Marking died, Diane got a job issuing CPR cards with the American Heart Association grooming center for South Bend.

"It's such an unfortunate platform that we have. I shouldn't know these names nether these circumstances," said Aerts. "I should only know Zac because he'due south running his mom's business now and Jake considering he'due south in college and Mark because he's playing baseball somewhere and we are so proud of them. I shouldn't know their names because of this. Just in that location will exist more than. Why would there not be?

"Why not be prepared to end it from happening over again?"

'Why would you wake up in this hurting?'

Jake would exist 25 years old. It'south been eight years since Julie lost him, but eight years have changed fiddling.

"It's the first thing y'all recall about when you wake up because information technology'southward a pigsty in your heart," she said. "And the last thing you think about at the terminate of the day and all in between."

People say time softens the grief, but not for her.

"Information technology'due south merely different. The pain is just equally harsh, merely as gut-wrenching, just as sharp," she said. "You lot only have to alive for your boys because that'due south what they desire for u.s.a.. They're looking downward on usa and nosotros have to do what we need to practice to get through our days."

Since Zac'south death, Teresa — and all the mothers — said if they didn't have other children, they wouldn't want to be alive.

"Why would you lot wake up in this pain every day?" Teresa said. "With Zac gone?"

For Diane, the void Marker left in her world is enormous.

"Everything's unlike," she said. "Information technology'south not just similar one person is removed. It changes the whole dynamic about everything."

The beginning year afterward Marker died, Diane said she cried every single day driving home from piece of work. Four years later on, the tears come in waves.

No mother, these moms say, should accept to ask for an autopsy of their 17-year-old son. No mother should have to read the expiry document of their 17-year-old son. No mother should have to 2d-gauge what she could have done to save her 17-year-erstwhile son.

No mother should feel the way the moms of Jake, Zac and Mark feel.

And in honour of their sons, they will, little by lilliputian, endeavor to make sure another mother never does.

Acquire more, salvage lives

-- Oct is Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) Sensation Calendar month.

-- Indiana recently signed into law HB1040, a law that mandates school corporations provide educational literature to families, athletes and coaches near sudden cardiac arrest, its signs and symptoms and how to react should an athlete show symptoms, including immediately removing them from practice or play. It too requires coaches to have video grooming in CPR.

 -- Get involved. Ask your school or able-bodied office if there are working, accessible AEDs

-- Pediatricians and other principal care providers should evaluate whether a patient'southward clinical history, family unit history or physical test suggests a adventure for sudden cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac decease.

-- If there is a concern, an electrocardiogram should be the first examination administered and it should be interpreted by a physician trained to recognize electric middle disease. The dr. should factor in a patient'due south clinical history and consider referral to a specialist.

-- Know these primal questions. Has your child or teen ever fainted, had an unexplained seizure, experienced chest pain or shortness of breath? Does their heart beat rapidly sometimes even at rest? Does anyone in the family accept a history of cardiac conditions or expiry earlier historic period fifty?

-- Acquire how to get a Center Safe Schoolhouse through Project Adam, https://www.projectadam.com/, which began in 1999 after the death of Adam Lemel, a 17-year-old Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, high school pupil who collapsed and died while playing basketball.

-- Email Indiana's Project Adam affiliate at projectadam@iuhealth.org

-- Learn more at the Play for Jake Foundation https://playforjake.org/ and Zac Mago Foundation. https://zacmagofoundation.org/

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.

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Source: https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/high-school/2021/10/20/indiana-high-school-athletes-die-sudden-cardiac-arrest/5504764001/