Running back Hayward Demison scored the winning touchdown Friday night for Central Catholic High School in Portland, Ore. But the celebration ended abruptly when Demison informed his coach that he was having trouble breathing and collapsed. "He wasn't breathing, he didn't have a pulse, his pupils weren't reacting to anything," Lisa Lyver, a cardiac nurse who was a spectator in the stands that night, told Portland's KGW-TV. "At that point, I started doing chest compressions on him."
Demison was in sudden cardiac arrest, the result of a defective left coronary artery - a lifelong ailment that had gone AED was available during the game, but it was not used, the NBC affiliate reported.
Demison, who also has athlete's asthma and initially thought he was having an asthma attack, will miss the rest of the football season and undergo heart surgery. If all goes well, doctors expect him to be ready to play again his senior season.
