SALON

Tuesday, Apr 24, 2012 12:45 AM UTC

Boy, 12, dies months after surviving heart attack

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Boy, 12, dies months after surviving heart attackThis Jan. 26, 2012, photo shows Isaac Arzate, 12, in Salem, Ore. Arzate, who survived a heart attack during basketball practice three months ago, has died after collapsing at baseball practice. Marion County Deputy Medical Examiner Rodge Womack confirmed Monday, April 23, 2012, that Arzate died later at a hospital. (AP Photo/The Oregonian, Bruce Ely) MAGS OUT; NO SALES; TV OUT; LOCAL TV OUT; LOCAL INTERNET OUT; THE MERCURY OUT; WILLAMETTE WEEK OUT; PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP OUT(Credit: AP)

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A 12-year-old Oregon boy who survived a heart attack during basketball practice three months ago has died after collapsing while playing baseball.

Fire officials say some of the same paramedics who helped revive Isaac Arzate in January rushed back to the school where he collapsed Friday night and tried again to save him. Marion County Deputy Medical Examiner Rodge Womack confirmed Monday that the Salem boy died later at a hospital.

Arzate was a sixth-grader at Stephens Middle School.

Both times he collapsed, the boy was playing sports at Scott Elementary School; however, neither event was an official school activity.

After Arzate’s first collapse Jan. 6, fast-acting coaches performed CPR and called paramedics. Arzate had surgery days later at Oregon Health and Science University to repair a heart defect.

In a statement, officials at the university’s Doernbecher Children’s Hospital declined to say whether Arzate had been cleared to play sports again, citing privacy laws.

Last week, when paramedics responded again to an emergency call from Scott Elementary, they recognized Arzate from their January rescue, Marion County Fire District Chief Kevin Henson said. Paramedics, who had recently completed refresher training in reviving pediatric patients, took over CPR from a bystander and worked feverishly to keep a pulse, he said.

“All calls involving critical pediatric patients are tough, and it was particularly hard on this crew,” Henson said.

Counselors were available for Stephens Middle School students Monday, said Jay Remy, a Salem-Keizer School District spokesman.

Arzate’s parents could not be reached for comment. His mother, Lindsay Wiens, told The Oregonian in January that she wasn’t sure her eldest child would survive his first heart attack.

Hospital officials declined to discuss Arzate’s heart condition, citing privacy laws. The Oregonian reported in January that a vessel stemming from the boy’s aorta wound around his heart.

Arzate isn’t the only area youth to collapse while playing sports recently. Fourteen-year-old Cody Sherell of La Center, Wash., outside Portland, died Jan. 10 after collapsing in cardiac arrest at basketball practice. A phone listing for Sherrell’s parents couldn’t be found.

More Jonathan J. Cooper.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills. "In an economy where we’re all in the same boat, one person’s spending is another person’s income. So when the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy."
320 points321 points | 269 comments
vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
261 points262 points | 23 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
224 points225 points | 31 comments
vote
Austerity Kills: Brian McArdle, a 57-year-old man who had had two strokes and could barely walk, was found "fit for work" by a government subcontractor, and had his benefits stopped. He died the next day.
107 points108 points | 11 comments
vote
“Jodorowsky’s Dune”: The sci-fi classic that never was.
82 points83 points | 16 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations