Posted: Thursday, March 4, 2010 1:00 am | Updated: 3:31 pm, Wed Mar 3, 2010.
By Peter Adelsen staff writer padelsen@kokomoperspective.com | 0 comments
It is hard to tell what tomorrow may bring, but for Western High School senior Drew Brantley, he nearly lost seeing his next tomorrow. Thanks to a device and the people using it, he is alive today.
Drew was in perfect health and a multi-sport athlete as a soccer goalie and baseball player. He previously played on the basketball team. There was nothing to expect at his age that could go wrong physically.
On Feb. 17, Brantley collapsed while playing a basketball game on one of the non-lifting days in his weight-training class at Western High School.
“They originally thought it was a seizure,” said Ron Brantley, his dad. “Once they evaluated him, they realized that it was a lot more than a seizure.”
Soon they began CPR on him and hooked up an automated external defibrillator, or AED, and he was shocked four times. They didn’t know right away, his dad said, but his heart stopped, and he was clinically dead for two to three minutes, they estimated.
Drew’s teacher, Alix Engle, immediately was working on Drew, Ron Brantley said. Others involved were athletic director Rick Fields, nurse Brenda Strunk, liaison officer Wayne Ives, as well as the students.
Drew was then taken by ambulance to Howard Regional Health System, where he was put on a ventilator and into an induced coma to keep him sedated, Ron Brantley said. Drew was then LifeLined to Methodist Hospital after waiting for the helicopter from Rochester to come because Kokomo’s was on a call.
Late that night, the hospital removed the breathing tube and he awoke, but he had some memory loss from the incident.
“When he woke up, he was scared to death because he didn’t know where he was at,” Ron Brantley said. “We would tell him where he was at and what had happened and then two minutes later he was waking up asking the same question. So it was a really rough night Wednesday night.”
The next day when he awoke late in the morning, he was doing a lot better.
“He could carry a conversation along with you, but he still had the memory loss, but he could at least carry a conversation, which made me and his mom feel much better,” Ron Brantley said.
From there, every team of doctors told the family that if it were not for the school having these AED units that Drew would have died.
“In all honesty, they have expressed to us a million times that without this AED unit that Drew would have died,” he said. “There would not have been enough CPR that would have saved him. It was totally the AED union that the school had bought and was in place.”
Thanks to Western being prepared with 12 AED units throughout the school buildings, his life was saved. But it may not have always been that way.
“We cannot say enough about Western,” he said. “Obviously they saved our son’s life, but they said five years ago or so that Western had one AED unit and it was locked up in the Athletic Director’s Office. Unless he was around, it basically did no good.”
From what the doctors and nurses said, according to Ron Brantley, it is not uncommon for a school to have one or two AED units and be locked up.
Now it comes down to other schools if a Western athletic team is on the road.
“Principal Rick Davis told me that Western is working on a program to send AED units with their teams when they go on the road, which is just fantastic. It’s just another credit for Western in really caring about their kids and their athletes.”
It was determined that it was in the electrical part of his heart that was the problem, his dad said. It is probably a genetic issue, he said.
The hospital then decided to put in an AICD unit that is an internal defibrillator and pacemaker built together. They inserted it into Drew’s upper-left chest and ran a wire through one of his veins into his heart.
“They actually program this unit to control what they want Drew’s heart to beat at and if it goes faster that what they want it to be at, it will give Drew a little shock to slow it down basically and if it goes slow, then the pacemaker will kick in and will pace his heart back up to where they want it to be, he said.
The company that manufactured the AICD was Boston Scientific and they even sent representatives to see Drew for his story as an inspiration for their company, he said.
Drew was then doing outstanding, besides being a little sore, and was sent home Tuesday. He may even return to Western High School late this week.
“We have to be real careful with infection with the incision,” he said. “He cannot raise his elbow above his shoulder for about three weeks at least. That’s just basically keeping him from pulling the wire out of his heart before it gets attached by the heart muscles itself.”
Drew had no idea that this could happen.
“It was kind of a shock here when I woke up (at the hospital) and heard that I went into a cardiac arrest,” Drew Brantley said. “When they told me that one of the possibilities was that it was genetic that it kind of eased my mind knowing that I didn’t do anything wrong, personally.”
Not surprisingly, he is thrilled that Western had the AED units in place that saved his life.
“They’re expensive, but if you use them once, they obviously pay for themselves,” he said. “If you don’t have to use them at all it is even better. It is a peace of mind that if something does happen that it’s there. I’m very thrilled that we have them in our school.”
Now, he wants to become a spokesperson to where AED units could become more common.
For him, everything went to plan when he collapsed he said.
“Everything went perfect,” he said. “If this had to happen, nothing went wrong with everyone who did everything.”
Since he collapsed he has received so much support. Even a Facebook group titled “Pray for Drew Brantley” was created.
“I think within like the next day there were a thousand people on that page,” he said. “When my mom told me about that at the hospital, I was like ‘No way.’ I don’t even think I know a thousand people. It’s overwhelming. The support from everybody has been just crazy.”
If it all goes well, Drew may be back on the baseball diamond this year.
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