March 28, 2024

Swift medical care for Pettit recognized at arena ceremony

DES MOINES — Creston/Orient-Macksburg wrestling coach Darrell Frain sent out a mass text to team members late Saturday evening, calling them to meet on the floor of Wells Fargo Arena for a picture holding the Class 2A second-place trophy.

Tayler Pettit quickly replied from his cell phone, "I might be a little late, coach."

The fact that the popular team member had regained his wit was indication of his recovery from a scary situation three days earlier.

Pettit, a senior at Creston High School, sent the text message from his room at Mercy Medical Center, where he underwent a surgical heart procedure Friday after being admitted in critical condition Wednesday.

Pettit, 18, collapsed moments after Creston/O-M wrestled in the semifinals of the State Dual Tournament Wednesday afternoon.

Paramedics had seconds to save his life, and those emergency medical workers were honored in a ceremony Saturday morning prior to that day’s session at the state tournament.

Among those honored were Creston athletic trainer Chris Leonard, the first person to notice the Panther wrestler was having distressed breathing; and tournament physician Dr. Dennis Zachary, who correctly surmised Pettit might be having an episode related to Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome (see related story, right).

Others in the honored group were from Iowa State University training staff, Mercy Medical EMT crew and Iowa Event Center staff. Former Creston/O-M wrestler Jordan Hayes was a part of the ISU training staff working the tournament.

“It was just a great way to recognize the team of people that helped in the whole situation,” Leonard said. “Obviously, the more prepared, the more you’re ready for that kind of thing, the better things go. We had a great team of people from top to bottom that helped with the whole process.”

Paramedics said Pettit had seizure-like activity from a sudden lack of oxygen to his brain and went into ventricular fibrillation, which can be a life-threatening heart rhythm.

Several shocks

Paramedics had to shock him with an automated external defibrillator twice on mat 5 where he collapsed, and six more times on the way to Mercy Medical Center, which is just a few blocks north of the arena.

At the same time, Leonard was involved in chest compressions conducted in combination with the electrical shocks for about five minutes as Pettit was rushed to the hospital.

Pettit’s mother, Melissa, was in attendance for the ceremony honoring the medical team Saturday morning. She told them her son had been upgraded from critical to serious on Thursday, and then to fair condition by Saturday. He was discharged from the hospital Sunday.

That was great news to Leonard, who was in the midst of the quick action to save Pettit’s life when he had stopped breathing and had only a faint, erratic pulse.

Although Pettit’s condition was not related to his wrestling, it was shortly after his match Wednesday that Leonard noticed out of the corner of his eye that the Panther senior was not acting like himself.

“The team was still wrestling, and I spotted him off to the side and he was wincing a little bit,” Leonard said. “He never complains, and he wouldn’t come to me and say anything. So I went over and checked on him. He was mostly just short of breath at first, and said he felt sore by his left ribs. It just kind of progressed from there. It was a little like hyperventilation, and in fact one time he said it almost felt like he was having a panic attack or something.”

When the dual meet with Union of LaPorte City was over, Pettit got up and tried to join his teammates in a line shaking hands with their opponent. He quickly had breathing issues again, and was bent over with his hands on his knees as the team huddled with coach Frain.

“Earlier, when I was checking his pulse, there were just too many things that didn’t feel good,” Leonard said. “So when they got up to go through the line, I told Darrell to hang onto him, that I’d be right back. I went to get the supervising doctor at that point. I wanted Doc Zachary to take a look at him.”

Critical moments

By the time Zachary and Leonard returned to Pettit’s side, he was starting to lose consciousness.

“Then it progressed really quick,” Leonard said. “I told the supervisor of the event athletic training staff that it’s AED (automated external defibrillator) time. He had gone into seizure at that point, and was coming out of it when the EMTs came over with the AED.”

Pettit’s coloring had changed by then from lack of oxygen throughout the body, and teammates, coaches and Pettit’s family were obviously distraught at how quickly his condition had deteriorated.

“C’mon Tayler! C’mon buddy, stay with us!” a frantic coach Frain pleaded, as teammates joined in the support and encouragement.

“We worked on him all the way to the ambulance and to the hospital,” Leonard said. “It’s awesome that it was that close. If this was going to happen, it’s great that it happened here. They had 15 people just waiting at the door of the hospital for him.”

ER staff continued to work to get Pettit’s heart back into normal rhythm. A breathing tube was applied to give his body a break from the stress it had been under.

WPW symptoms

Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome is a heart rhythm problem that can cause a very fast heart rate. In WPW, an extra pathway becomes a bypass tract for the electrical connection linking the upper chambers and lower chambers of the heart. Those with the condition are more prone to have atrial fibrillation, or atrial flutter, and develop rapid heart rates of more than 250 to 300 times per minute.

This may result in fainting or cause sudden death.

The condition had never surfaced before for Pettit, active in three sports at Creston High School (football, wrestling and soccer).

“You just never know when, or if, they experience the symptoms,” Leonard said. “At the time we wondered if something was caused by impact of getting slammed in his wrestling match, but now we know it was just a defect that he had. I think (basketball players) Hank Gaithers and Reggie Lewis were similar cases. The good thing is, surgery went well and he should have full recovery, from what the doctors said. They go in and cauterize that extra channel that caused his heart rate to get out of sync.”

Everyone close to Pettit was shuddering at the thought of symptoms occuring in a location with less accessibility to emergency medical care.

“He likes to hunt and fish,” Leonard said. “If it happened somewhere else, who knows? We were very fortunate it happened here where there were EMTs with an AED handy.”

“We would be planning something completely different, that’s what,” Melissa Pettit said Sunday, as she was assisting her son with paperwork associated with his discharge from the hospital.

“We are so grateful to everyone for their quick action to save our son’s life,” Melissa Pettit said.