Danielle Burkett, Warner Robins, GA – 18 at time of event (2008)
She played 2nd base for the Georgia Elite Gold fastpitch softball team, and had been playing for ten years. She is no longer. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know, no one did. Danielle went to Irvine, California for a tournament in the summer of ‘08. But, she didn’t come back with the team. Instead she visited the hospital for a week.
The reason? She found out that she has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy*.
How? By collapsing on the field just prior to their second game of the day.
She very nearly died then and there. But she was saved; quick action by a bystander made it possible. There was also an AED, but it was defective.
“My friend Kristen’s mom is a nurse, saw [my collapse] and knew something wasn’t right.” Danielle recalled the story as told. “She rolled me over and saw that my eyes were rolled back and that I wasn’t breathing.” Another local team member's mom called 9-1-1 while Gina, the nurse, began CPR. The medical staff from the field brought the AED to the scene and applied it to Danielle’s chest. However the battery was not charged.
Fortunately the EMTs arrived within minutes and they shocked her three times to restore a rhythm. The hospital was only a mile away. Besides the usual ventilator and induced coma, Danielle also had a chest tube due to a collapsed lung—most likely from the good quality CPR!
“I was in a coma for four or five days, then I had the surgery and two days after that I went home,” Danielle said. “They did an echo [echocardiogram**] and found I had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. It was so weird, because I never had anything to show I had heart disease.” Sadly this is a common situation, which heart screening could catch before an SCA event.
“I woke up in pain. I looked down and saw [the scar] on my right side. You can still see the staple marks!” Danielle said with regret. “I had no idea what had happened. My parents are excited because I’m awake, and they told me all I was saying was ‘Did I catch the ball?’ I thought maybe I ran to the fence and cut my chest, [in a diving catch].”
“I’d never heard about having a [defibrillator] in your chest!” Danielle said in wonder. ”It was the first time I ever saw my dad cry."
"I’ve never felt so weak before,” Danielle said of her time in the recovery ward, before going home.
“I had so many doctors appointments when I came home,” Danielle said in exasperation. “I had asthma and [the pulmonologist] took out the stitches from my chest tube. I had a eye doctor for the burst blood vessels in my eyes. I had an appointment at Emory with an electrophysiologist, and a [neurologist] for the seizures. Then I had to do a sleep test to make sure my brain was okay,” she said with a big sigh.
Danielle’s ICD has delivered a shock twice, about three months apart, and probably at night since she was not aware of them at all.
“They told me the dates, when they check it [during the regular EP consultation].”
“I’m so scared of exercise, even jogging,” Danielle said with hesitation. “It’s all I think about [the possibility of a zap], or that it might not even work!”
It is less than a year since her event so it is to be expected that she has some anxiety and fear. She is overcoming these psychological aspects.
“I think I’m getting more and more accepting of [the ICD bump and scar]. People are saying ‘You should show it off!’ ” Danielle said with a laugh. She has also spoken at a cardiology class on sudden death.
-Jeremy Whitehead
* Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, HCM is a disease of the heart muscle which becomes thickened without any obvious cause. It is a leading cause of sudden cardiac death in young athletes.
**An echocardiogram is a cardiac ultrasound, and uses standard ultrasound techniques to image two-dimensional sections of the heart.