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Beacon Athletic Trainer Uses Training, Revives Lacrosse Player

Game after game, week after week, year after year, Craig Lindsey carried an automated external defibrillator (AED) to and from high school athletic competitions. Periodically, all of the athletic trainers at Beacon Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine undergo training on the use of emergency medical equipment. Although none of the trainers want to be in a situation where they have to employ this training, it is imperative that they are ready.

This training paid off on Saturday when Centerville High School’s mens lacrosse faced Archbishop Moeller High School. Lindsey is the head athletic trainer for Moeller, and was on the sidelines monitoring the lacrosse game and a rugby match, both on Moeller’s back fields.

With the Elks trailing the crusaders by six, Grant Mays, a senior midfielder at Centerville, made a gutsy move. He blocked a shot on goal with his body, but took a hard hit just below his heart. Without pausing, he scooped the ball up and began sprinting down field. After making it close to 50 yards, Mays collapsed.

Moeller coach Sean McGinnis recalled thinking that it was pretty serious as soon as Mays fell. The referee stopped the game and the medical personnel began running onto the field. That’s when Craig Lindsey, Moeller’s head trainer, sprang into action. Head of security Rich Wallace noticed the midfielder’s collapse and ran out as well.

Lindsey decided to pass up a training conference in order to to supervise the lacrosse and rugby matches. True to his training, Lindsey had an automated external defibrillator (AED) on site, just in case an emergency arose. As Mays lay prone, it appeared standard methods were not enough to revive him.  Josh Horner, another Beacon Orthopaedics trainer, from Princeton High School, was on site to help Lindsey cover both events at Moeller.

This ad hoc team placed the AED’s pads on Mays’s chest and were able to get him breathing on his own again after one shock.

“Without the AED, it could have gone the other way,” Lindsey said. “We’re so blessed that it did it’s job. You take it to practice and games every single day, but I never had to use it in 21 years.”

What EMTs diagnosed as “commotio cordis” is a condition Lindsey learned about in college. It entails a disruption of heart rhythm due to a direct impact to the chest while the muscle is in between beats. “When that happens, it sends the heart into a quivering state,” the athletic trainer recalled. This causes a lack of blood to the brain, which causes a victim to pass out.

This unfortunate turn of events showcased the need for an athletic trainer at high school sporting events. Lindsey noted how thankful he was for the training that allowed him and his team to spring into action.

To read the full story, as written by Scott Springer and published in the Cincinnati Enquirer, please click here.

 

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