Above: Volunteer Dennis Crayon uses test dummies to demonstrate CPR to a group of youngsters during a cardiac screening event for young people on Sept. 27. PHOTOS BY FRANK GALIPO More than 500 young people received potentially lifesaving heart screenings during an event that the Doherty family of Middletown organized as a way to pay it forward.
The sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) screenings offered Sept. 27 at Mater Dei Preparatory School in Middletown drew an overwhelming turnout, according to the family.
“Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia [CHOP] has never had a response like that,” said Mike Doherty, whose family organized the event in conjunction with the hospital where his son, Mike Jr., or “MikeyD,” was treated.
MikeyD will soon return to Bayshore Middle School for the first time since he suffered SCA after a basketball practice on Sept. 7, 2012. Then 12 years old, he was initially taken to Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank.
Left: Mike Doherty Sr. and his son, Mike Doherty Jr., also known as MikeyD, attend the event held at Mater Dei Preparatory School in Middletown. “After the SCA, he was taken to Riverview, and he was pronounced dead for 35 minutes. But the doctors said to keep working on him. He was 12, he was a kid, and they flew him to [CHOP],” Doherty said.
After a few months, he was brought back to the Children’s Specialized Hospital in Mountainside, where the family was told MikeyD would never use his hands or arms and never speak again, according to his father.
“He was in a wheelchair,” Doherty said. “Now he uses his hands and arms, and he can throw a ball just like he used to. He is not in a wheelchair anymore. He is doing things nobody thought he would ever do.”
Doherty said his son, now going on 14, will be back at school this month.
“We are going to start the transition back into school where he will do two days at Bayshore per week and then three days doing therapy. Right now, we are looking at sometime in October,” he said.
MikeyD receives physical therapy, speech therapy and cognitive rehabilitation at CHOP — and continues to improve.
“It is amazing,” his father said. Doherty has been chronicling his son’s progress on a blog since the day of the incident.
In a post dated Sept. 17, he wrote, “That boy never, ever gives up. He keeps on doing what they said could not be done.”
“I spoke with one of his physical therapists the other day, and she said, ‘I know this may not have been the path that he chose, but you should be very proud of him. He has come a long way,’ ” Doherty said. “And she has never met anyone with that kind of drive. He still battles every day with memory and learning disabilities, but he battles.”
In addition to screenings for SCA, the Sept. 27 event in cluded
CPR and automated external defibrillator demonstrations.
Doherty said the family wants to keep making the screenings available free of charge and is raising funds through corporate sponsorships.
“We wanted to raise money for these events … and not ask people to pay, because maybe there is some guy out there [who is] out of work and he has five kids and he wants to have them tested. I do not want to discour- age anyone who could not afford it,” he said.
Moya Doherty, MikeyD’s mother, emphasized the importance of the heart screenings for young athletes, noting that underlying issues can be identified by an electrocardiogram (ECG) or echocardiogram (ECHO).
The screenings were administered by the CHOP cardiology team.
Parents received a form with their child’s results if the ECG was normal. If results were considered abnormal, parents and physicians were informed of the recommendations for follow-up, she said.
In addition, the information gathered from the screenings will be used as part of a research project investigating whether screening the hearts of children is affordable, practical and can save lives, Moya Doherty said.
In addition to CHOP staff, Mike Doherty said local teachers and nurses from Bayshore Middle School were present at the event to help administer the tests.
“We formed the MikeyD Foundation about a year after it happened,” Doherty said. “We got ourselves back together, and now we are giving back to the community.
“We did it at Mater Dei because the St. Mary’s parish was so good to us throughout all of this. They held Masses in Mikey’s name, made us dinners — and we will definitely do another one here.”