A San Marcos teen was revived after going into cardiac arrest this spring because a coach had learned CPR shortly before he collapsed.
Deleye Kamara was playing soccer at his San Marcos middle school in April when he noticed something off at the beginning of the second half.
“I just got really tired out of nowhere. And my head got heavy, and my eyes got really dark,” Kamara said.
He didn’t know it at the time, but he was going into cardiac arrest.
“I fell to my knees and I was holding my head, and I started screaming, and they were like ‘What's wrong, what's wrong?’ And I was just out,” Kamara said. He was revived by a coach who had learned it about 30 minutes before their team got on the bus to play his team.
“Their head coach was like, ‘You need to learn how to do CPR,’” Kamara said.
Deleye is not the only Central Texas teen to go into sudden cardiac arrest over the past few months. Dadrien Brown had just finished playing basketball when he collapsed in a huddle.
Off-duty firefighter Mike Heeney was in the crowd to watch his son and sprang into action to save Brown’s life. He wants everybody to be trained to handle such a situation.
“When you hear a mother's scream, are you going to be ready to go? Are you going to be that person that steps up and challenges himself to start CPR?” Heeney asked.
Heeney also stressed the importance of having a defibrillator present, which helped shock both teens back to life.
Austin-Travis County EMS offers hands-only CPR classes. Go here for more information and to sign up.
Go here to find CPR classes taught by the American Red Cross.
WEB EXTRA: CPR steps with Austin-Travis County EMS Capt. Randy Chhabra:
