8-year-old cheats death after baseball pitch to chest stops heart
The lucky Calif. boy was saved by a pair of off-duty paramedics who were watching his game and rushed to his aid.
By Lee Moran / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, April 16, 2013, 7:41 AM
An 8-year-old Rohnert Park, Calif., boy nearly died of cardiac arrest after being struck by a baseball pitch Sunday.
abcnews.go.com
A young batter whose heart stopped after he was hit in the chest by a baseball pitch was saved by a pair of hero off-duty paramedics.
The eight-year-old, who has not been named, was left fighting for his life after suffering cardiac arrest during a little league match in Rohnert Park, Northern California, on Sunday.
Shocked friends could only watch as he tried to run towards first base, but stumbled and came crashing to the ground.
Luckily a pair of off-duty paramedics - Dan and Susan Farren - were watching the game, and immediately sprang into action.
"I was right behind the plate and this kid got hit in the heart with the ball," 14-year-old umpire Trenton Starrett, told ABC's affiliate KGO. "He went to first, like he tripped once, and he got back up, and then fell again, and then he didn't get back up."
They performed CPR on the boy until other paramedics could arrive with a defibrillator to kick-start his heart back into a normal rhythm.
He was then taken to Oakland Children's Hospital for treatment, where he is expected to remain until Tuesday.
"God had his hand on this kid's heart," Aaron Johnson, director for Cal Ripken Baseball in Rohnert Park, told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.
Johnson also revealed that league officials were now thinking about keeping defibrillators on the grounds at all times.
Originally Posted by David Jamieson
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