WFLA
by: Stacie Schaible
VIDEO
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — It was not your normal day at Disney.
There were rides, food and fun.. Until everything changed in an instant.
A Land O’ Lakes family celebrating their son Ernesto’s 6th birthday had no idea their lives were about to be turned upside down, something they now see as a blessing in disguise.
He looks like a normal kid doing normal kid things. It’s not until he lifts his shirt that you realize 7-year-old Ernesto Tagle has a superpower.
It’s actually an ICD, an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, but it makes Ernesto feel like Iron Man.
It’s something Ernesto’s parents didn’t know he needed until just before his sixth birthday at his favorite Disney ride, the Guardians of the Galaxy rollercoaster at Epcot.
“I looked over at him like, yay, and he was passed out or what appeared to be passed out to me at the time,” said Christine Tagle, Ernesto’s mother. “My husband and daughter were sitting in front of me and I kept saying something is wrong, something is wrong. Unfortunately, the ride is on a track so we had to complete the ride.”
When the ride stopped, their world changed forever.
“His lips were blue, pretty much almost white,” Christine said. “Again, couldn’t feel any breath. Couldn’t feel any heartbeat.”
She started CPR while the Disney workers got an automated external defibrillator to shock Ernesto’s heart. They kept him alive until the ambulance arrived.
Their perfectly healthy little boy had come very close to not making it.
“As I think back on it, oh my god that could have been it,” Christine said. “My whole life would have changed. I would have lost my son. My daughter wouldn’t have a sibling anymore, but in the moment, you’re just saying, please work. Please come back. I just need this to happen.”
Ernesto was intubated, and things were touch-and-go in the hospital for a few days before doctors figured out Ernesto had a rare, inherited genetic condition called “Catechloaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia.”
It affects the heart’s electrical system and can lead to sudden cardiac arrest.
“It’s triggered from the heart rate increasing, which can happen from sports,” Christine said. “It could happen from cardio activity. It could also happen from being excited like when you’re a 5-year-old little boy getting ready to ride your favorite roller coaster.”
The good news is Ernesto recovered completely and is a perfectly active 7-year-old boy.
That device implanted in his chest is insurance. It’s there to restart his heart should it ever stop again.
There are no more roller coasters in Ernesto’s future, no contact sports either, but his parents are just grateful help was there as soon as they stepped off that ride.
“We are incredibly blessed that everything happened the way it did,” Christine said.
