SALT LAKE CITY — Bronny James, the son of NBA superstar LeBron James continues to recover after going into cardiac arrest during basketball practice at USC on Monday.
The family said on Tuesday that the 18-year-old freshman guard is out of the ICU and in stable condition.
Back in 2012, Danny Berger was a 22-year-old basketball player for Utah State when he went into cardiac arrest during a team practice.
"Definitely one of the lucky ones," said Berger. "Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is not a great chance of survival."
After he collapsed, Berger says the team's trainer and others wasted no time in trying to help him.
"Got the AED on me really quick, started CPR and shocked my heart back into a normal rhythm," said Berger.
Berger says an AED, or automated external defibrillator, is important for schools to have.
"Timing is so important, the faster you get an AED on somebody, the better chance of survival they have," said Berger.
Lisa Walker, a certified athletic trainer in the Nebo School District echoed that sentiment, saying the device is critical.
"Every minute that goes by without an AED being placed, the chance of survival drops by about 10%," said Walker.
Walker specifically works at Springville High School, where she says there are AED's placed throughout the school.
"On my campus here at Springville High School, I have seven, so, we tried to place them within 45 seconds of anywhere," said Walker.
Brenan Jackson, an Assistant Director with the Utah High School Activities Association says they helped write a grant with the National Federation of State High School Associations(NFHS), which is their parent company to get an AED put in every high school.
There are 158 high schools that are current members of the UHSAA.
Jackson also serves as a liaison with their sports medicine advisory committee. He says their pre-participation health examination form is required for all kids to take part in any high school sport across the state.
"Parents actually have a questionnaire that they go through with their child and it lists all of the things that they've been involved in concussions, medications, history of maybe some heat illness," said Jackson.
Jackson says the form doesn't replace the child wellness evaluation that would be done by a family medical provider.
"There really should be the two checkups that happen," said Jackson.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Jackson says, they have updated the form to include more respiratory and pulmonary things they are seeing happen with student-athletes.
States, like Texas, give high school athletes the ability to get an electrocardiogram (ECG) heart test, as part of their required sports exam.
FOX 13 News asked Walker, who is a part of the sports advisory committee if that could be added here in Utah.
She said that's something that has been discussed more than once in their committee meetings.
"We are seeing more cardiac stuff come up so down the road, maybe that changes and technology will change as well," said Walker.
She says having a blanket mandate across the board for testing, cardiac-wise, might not be necessary right now.
Walker told FOX 13 News she believes any of the sports here in Utah are safe enough, if the right people are in place and if the health and safety of the student-athletes is the primary concern.
She says all of the coaches in the state of Utah are mandated with some first aid and CPR training.
