Matters of the Heart
By Paul Ohanian
Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff
In March 2000, Louis Acompora was a goalie on the Northport (N.Y.) High School freshman lacrosse team. He likely shared the same hopes that many other 14-year-old players harbor: enjoy a good season, improve on his skills and prepare to join the varsity team in future seasons.
Sadly, Acompora never had a chance to realize those goals.
During a game, Acompora absorbed a shot that hit him in the chest. Despite wearing a chest protector, the impact of the ball sent him into cardiac arrest. Coaches and officials performed CPR on site, but Acompora was pronounced dead-on-arrival at the hospital.
Following his death, Louis’ parents — Karen and John — learned that the rare incident that claimed their son’s life actually has a name: commotio cordis. It occurs when an individual receives a blow to the chest in a very precise spot over the heart at a very precise moment in the cardiac cycle. The blunt blow — which doesn’t even need to have extreme force — imparts an electric charge to the heart, causing ventricular fibrillation in an otherwise normal heart.
The Acomporas also learned that their son might have survived if Northport had had an automated external defibrillator, commonly known as an AED, onsite. These portable machines help increase the likelihood of surviving sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) by shocking the heart back into its normal rhythm.
Data collected by Dr. Barry Maron of the Minneapolis Heart Institute chronicles 188 cases of commotio cordis, encompassing a variety of sports-related and non-sports-related instances. His findings reveal that victims who receive defibrillation within one to two minutes of sustaining impact have the best chance for survival. Additionally, the data suggest that early CPR application is just as important as early AED application in helping victims survive.
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