Oct 7, 2024High school football player’s life saved with AED
A Minnesota high school football player had his life saved with an AED after collapsing during a recent football practice.
Sixteen-year-old Keegan Hawke had suffered a sudden cardiac arrest during practice for his Stillwater High School football team. His mother, Katie, a firefighter and first responder, received the 911 call that noted an AED had been deployed by the school’s on-site athletic trainer.
A recent story from KARE-11 detailed the incident and the response from the first responder team and the school’s athletic trainer. Below is an excerpt from the KARE-11 story.
Keegan said he’s felt his heart rate speed up at times before going back to normal. Doctors had checked him out in the past and told him his heart was normal.
On Sept 24, Keegan experienced that feeling again and wanted to alert his junior varsity coach.
“We were running a drill, a non-contact drill, and I was told I started yelling to my coach and running over to him,” Keegan said.
Keegan collapsed at his coach’s feet. Teammates immediately alerted Stillwater head athletic trainer Michael Renfro and assistant Olivia DuBois.
DuBois started CPR as Renfro prepared the automated external defibrillator, or AED, a portable device meant to save lives during sudden cardiac arrest.
In his 15 years as a trainer, Renfro had never used an AED on a person. But he said it went just like during training.
The AED combined with CPR brought back Keegan’s pulse.
“Thank God for everybody that was there,” Katie said. “We didn’t know if he had brain damage. We didn’t know if he was going to make it.”
It was the day before Keegan’s 16th birthday, a milestone that passed while he was in a medically-induced coma in the hospital, where he woke up after 72 hours.
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But to be able to walk out of the hospital, to go home with family just 10 days later, is a privilege neither Keegan nor any of his family takes lightly.
After this experience, Katie and Keegan are determined to spread awareness of sudden cardiac arrest and the benefits of accessible AEDs. They’ve started a Gofundme page to help in those efforts.
To read the full story from KARE-11, click here.