Sports

LITTLE ROCK PARKVIEW TRAGEDY OPENS UP ANTHONY’S EYES

By Jay Lupo/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Monday, March 3, 2008 10:11 AM CST

The tragic night of Jan. 2 really hit home with Pine Bluff Superintendent Frank Anthony.

Marsha Bottoms-Craig, a Nationally Registered EMT and school nurse at Watson Chapel High, can be found at the at the end of the bench on game nights with a Lifepak CR plus defibrillator by her side. Pine Bluff Superintendent Frank Anthony has reached an agreement in principle with Jefferson Regional Medical Center to purchase 14 defibrillators for the Pine Bluff School District. Pine Bluff Commercial/Ralph Fitzgerald

That night in Little Rock, with 4:16 to play in the first quarter of a high school basketball game between Little Rock Parkview and Lake Hamilton, 17-year-old Patriots’ player Antony Hobbs III collapsed on the court. He was taken by paramedics to Baptist Health Medical Center and later pronounced dead.

The cause of Hobbs’ death was an enlarged heart, professionally known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).

“That was such a sad, sad situation,” Anthony said. “This is something that’s taken the life of many promising athletes.”

Around 110 high school athletes each year fall victim to HCM, according to the National Athletic Trainers Association. Professional athletes and coaches aren’t excluded, either. Just recently, several notable pros — Atlanta Hawks center Jason Collier, San Francisco 49ers offensive lineman Thomas Herrion and Army women’s basketball coach Maggie Dixon, just to name a few — all died from HCM or similar ailments.

In Hobbs’ case — and thousands of others — an automated external defibrillator (AED) could’ve possibly saved his life. An AED is a portable device applied outside the body that analyzes the heart and delivers a shock to restart normal cardiac.

An AED wasn’t available that night in Little Rock, so it’s not known if it would’ve saved Hobbs’ life. The devices typically can cost as much as $1,500, but the price can lower if purchased in bulk.

Not one to sit on his hands, Anthony is getting proactive about the situation. Anthony has reached an informal agreement with Jefferson Regional Medical Center to purchase 14 AEDs for the school district to be available at each junior and senior high athletic event. Anthony said JRMC has agreed in principle to pay half of the estimated $28,000 cost for the machines and provide training on how to operate the life-saving devices.

“It’s sad that losing the life of Antony Hobbs had to kind of slap us upside our head a little bit,” said Anthony, who estimated the district would have the machines in “two to three” weeks. “Sometimes you have to have a tragic situation occur to open up your eyes.

“We’re going to be aggressive about the situation. We’re getting the equipment and we’re going to train our people.

“I think 14 puts us a long way from zero. So I just hope that shows our initiative and concern on this matter.”

One person who was glad to hear the news was Pine Bluff girls basketball coach Loy Moore.

Moore is all too familiar with matters of the heart. His wife of 13 years, Rona, shares the exact same ailment as Army’s Dixon.

“My wife went in with the flu one day and they did a chest X-ray. It came back and showed that her heart was enlarged,” he said.

“They sent her to a cardiologist then, and they told her that her valves weren’t working right.

“She’s had to have two open heart surgeries and she’s had her valves replaced. It’s something we deal with everyday.”

The Hobbs tragedy struck a cord with Moore for many reasons. Had things gone a little differently, Moore could’ve been in the same situation as Parkview Coach Al Flannigan that night.

Before Hobbs’ collapsed and died, Moore and the Fillies had their own scare. After a loss to Little Rock Central on Jan. 2, senior forward Kanesha Hicks collapsed in the Pine Bluff lockeroom.

“It’s always really, really hot in Central’s gym,” Moore said. “Everybody that played a lot was dehydrated. And she went down right after the game. We honestly felt like it was dehydration. She was out for maybe 60 or 70 seconds.”

When Hicks came to, she started complaining of chest pains, Moore said. Hicks told Moore she was having trouble catching her breath.

“That’s when she turned to me and said: ‘Let’s go get the ambulance,’” Moore said. “The paramedics got there and they thought it was dehydration, too.

“But they took her to Baptist Medical Center and then they told her to go see her doctor in Pine Bluff, that they had spotted something that wasn’t right.”

After a day full of tests, Hicks was diagnosed with an enlarged heart.

Hicks, on top of being the best rebounder and defender on the Fillies’ basketball team, is a superstar in track and field, the best hurdler in the state. And fortunately, her story has a happy ending.

“She can control it,” Moore said. “With medication and close monitoring, she’ll be OK. We just have to look for the warning signs and symptoms, like shortness of breath. When that starts, she’ll have to rest.”

The Fillies lost on Wednesday in the first round of the Class 7A state tournament at Conway, so their season is over. But the next time Moore coaches a game, he’ll know an AED is close by and available if needed.

“The defibrillators are a good thing,” he said. “They’re coming, and that’s a relief. Several states already have them.

“When you start dealing with heart issues, seconds matter. Not minutes ... seconds.”

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