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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Student collapses on field during practice, later dies

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 10/7/2011 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Students and staff of a Winnipeg private school are mourning a Grade 11 student athlete who collapsed during a soccer practice Wednesday night.

Grief counsellors met students at St. John's-Ravenscourt when they arrived on Thursday morning, hours after learning of the death of Evan Dupuis.

"We made sure they were attended to," said SJR head of school Stephen Johnson. "Every class he was in was a class where people would be looking at an empty chair and thinking about it."

On Thursday, the teen's teammates gathered and offered a prayer near the field where he fell.

The incident occured at a varsity soccer tryout. As the practice wound down, the team was working on light sprints when the student lost consciousness.

While one parent in the audience -- a doctor -- rushed forward to perform CPR, a student fetched one of SJR's two defibrillator machines. The doctor attempted to rescucitate the boy with the defibrillator until paramedics arrived. The teen was rushed to Children's Hospital, where he died.

In a letter to parents and students, Johnson described the student as a "wonderful friend" with a "quiet, good nature and kind heart."

Johnson praised the coaches, parents and students at the practice for taking quick and decisive steps to try to save the teen's life. "I was very proud with the way they responded to a really shocking event," he said, noting SJR students received training in CPR.

"You never know how someone is going to react until it happens, but they did all the right things right away. It doesn't feel like it was enough this afternoon, but no step was left untaken."

There was no indication the student was feeling unwell before his collapse, Johnson said, and the school was not aware of anything in his medical history that might have made playing sports a known risk.

According to some experts, that sad story is shared by many. Michelle Snyder, a spokeswoman for the U.S.-based Parent Heart Watch group, lost her 17-year-old daughter three years ago in a similar incident on a soccer field. "I went through it. There is nothing worse," she said, extending her sympathy to the teen's friends and family.

Along with more than 150 other parents, Snyder works to educate the public about sudden cardiac arrest in youth, which can be brought on by medical conditions that often go undetected. Her group says while the total incidence rate is unknown, the condition is the leading cause of death on school property.

Young athletes are especially at risk, with perhaps one out of every 40,000 young athletes being struck by sudden cardiac arrest, according to Parent Heart Watch. "For many of these kids, death is the first symptom," Snyder said -- as with her otherwise healthy daughter.

"That's incredibly frustrating. But there are things that you can do."

The group publishes educational materials on their website -- ParentHeartWatch.org -- to teach the public about how to improve early detection of possible underlying conditions, and how to identify the signs of sudden cardiac arrest.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 7, 2011 A12

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