Device Can Make Schools Heart Attack-Ready

Sept. 4 -- When 15-year-old Greg Moyer stepped onto the basketball court to play for Notre Dame High School, he had just been elected to the honor roll, and had high hopes of playing football for Penn State one day.

"Greg Moyer, a 6-3 sophomore, comes into the Spartan lineup," the game announcer at East Stroudsburg North High School in East Stroudsburg, Pa., said as the gregarious young man bounced onto the court.

That Dec. 2, 2000, away game would be Greg's last.

"I never thought for one instant that going up to that school 23 miles away from here would be the end of his life," said his mother, Rachel Moyer. "I always called him my baby, even though he was 6-3 and 220 pounds."

Greg played for 10 minutes, and then walked off the court at halftime.

"I made eye contact with him and waved, and he gave me the Greg smile, and we knew everything was OK," said his father, John Moyer.

A Sudden Cardiac Arrest

But everything wasn't OK. Greg collapsed in the locker room. A friend frantically sent for his parents, who raced back to the locker room to discover their only son lying unconscious on the floor.

"I thought perhaps he took a blow in the game that I hadn't seen — but no way did I ever believe that he was that close to death," John Moyer said.

"I'm saying, 'Gregory, breathe, you're not breathing, why aren't you breathing, Greg? What's the matter?' and he opened his eyes and he gasped for that breath — and I know he heard me," said Rachel Moyer.

Greg had suffered a sudden cardiac arrest from an enlarged heart that no one knew he had. As the minutes ticked away, it took an unbearably long time for the ambulance to reach the remote Pennsylvania school. Then, it took the ambulance another half hour to reach the hospital.

Once there, the emergency room doctor was unable to save Greg.

"I again asked him to, to try one more time, figuring it would take a miracle, but when it's your child lying there, you try anything you can," John Moyer recalled. "And he said, 'John, it's too late.' "