Penn Medicine and other community leaders are pushing for more AEDs to be present at youth and community facilities after the incident in June.
A Bucks County teen was reunited with the medical team that saved his life after going into cardiac arrest during a basketball game in June. NBC10’s Deanna Durante has the story.
A Bucks County teen was reunited with the medical team that saved his life after going into cardiac arrest during a basketball game in June.
It’s every parents nightmare. One minute, 15-year-old Evan Blanch was playing on the court, then he collapses because his heart stopped beating.
“It could have happened to anyone, we have no explanation for this,” said Jennifer Blanch, Evan’s mom.
When Evan went down, Ann Marie DiSteffano, a nurse at Penn Medicine, was around to help because her son was also playing on the court at the time.
“I play it back a million times in my head,” said DiSteffano. “I did CPR. His dad did the breaths.”
“People were like, ‘He’s going to be okay. He’s going to be okay,'” DiSteffano said. “But I was like, ‘Is he ok? Why is he not okay?”
Evan’s family said they were told the gym did not have an an automated extended defibrillator, but thankfully a Central Bucks ambulance arrived and used an AED to shock Evan’s heart back to life.
