AED saves life of teen who collapses during basketball tourney



MEQUON (WITI) -- A 17-year-old basketball player collapsed during a game at Homestead High School on Wednesday night, July 17th, and trainers were able to save his life.

It happened during a big AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) tournament.

April Daniels is an athletic trainer from Cardinal Stritch, who, on Wednesday night was attending to the needs of the top Blue Chip athletes in the country.

Daniels is constantly on point, waiting to be called into action, and it happened Wednesday night, during the tournament's final game that day.

"Told me we had an athlete who had collapsed," Daniels said.

The 17-year-old was on the floor, conscious yet unresponsive, and the situation became dire.

"He did have a faint pulse, but he had some pretty irregular breathing. Shortly thereafter he had no pulse," Daniels said.

911 was called, and Daniels began CPR. Seconds later, training staff handed her an automatic external defibrillator, or AED, used during cardiac arrest.

"The machine can analyze the vicitm's heart rate and determine whether a shock was necessary," Daniels said.

The shock was necessary, so it was delivered to the teen's chest, and his pulse came back, though it was still weak.

"We got through three series of CPR repetitions and emergency response teams had already arrived on scene," Daniels said.

The teen was taken by emergency responders, and soon after, became coherent.

This was Daniels first time using an AED.

"You kind of hope that you never have to put that into action," Daniels said.

On Thursday,s he was back helping athletes get ready for their next game, and said she is thankful Homestead High School had an AED on hand.

"Ultimately I think that was probably the deciding factor in the positive outcome that we had," Daniels said.

The young man is still at Columbia St. Mary's Hospital Ozaukee. Daniels says he is recovering nicely, and it appears he will be okay.