NewsNovember 24, 2016
Thankful people: Notre Dame teen survives life-threatening collapse at soccer practice
Notre Dame teen Jack Essner survives sudden cardiac arrest during soccer practice, thanks to quick CPR by teammates and coaches. Now, he reflects on gratitude and resilience as he recovers.
The last memory Jack Essner has about that summer day is having his senior pictures taken.
In retrospect, the morning photo session Aug. 8 produced the "before" shots of a 17-year-old whose senior year at Notre Dame Regional High School -- and life -- was about to carom off course in a matter of hours.
Everything after that Monday session and the following three days, he's learned from others.
His mother, Mary, fills in one blank, relating her return trip from errands as her son headed to soccer practice that day.
"We passed each other on the road, and I just remember, I said, 'You going?' and he said, 'Yeah, I'm going a little early because I wanted to kick some PKs with the goalie.' And I said, 'OK, love you, love you,' and boom, off he went," she recalled.
The next time she saw him was in the emergency room at Saint Francis Medical Center, where he arrived by ambulance after being resuscitated with lifesaving CPR during practice.
He spent two days in a medically induced coma before having a defibrillator/pacemaker device surgically inserted.
"I had heard of sudden cardiac arrest before, but it had never, ever crossed my mind," Essner said last week. "I don't think I had checked my pulse in two years, and now I check it 50 times a day. It's just one of those things. I'm starting to get better about relaxing and realizing that I am OK, but before all this, yeah, I thought it was the last possible thing I thought would happen."
It's not the senior year he envisioned -- "It's definitely been a wild card," he said -- but his words ring like a Heisman Trophy speech when queried about those at the top of his long list of people for whom he's grateful over the past months.
"The big thank-yous would go out to JP Schuchardt, Dan Martin and the rest of my coaches. Especially those two, and trainer Dave Enderle is fantastic as well, and my mom and my dad," said Essner, who also voiced appreciation for people in the medical profession.
Essner received an award from his coaches during a recent banquet -- Most Inspirational -- which he at first questioned because he never saw the field during the Bulldogs' 16-4-1 season that featured a district title for the first time in five years.
"It was awesome to get the award; I just wish I could have played, but there are more important things in life, and that's what I've come to realize," Essner said.
One of nine seniors on the team, he already had become an established leader by example and personality.
"It kind of gave us motivation, because Jack had always been the kind of person who would never give up," said Schuchardt, a junior midfielder. "He's always been one of the hardest workers on the team, and so whenever we were struggling, you know at practice during a tough run or whatever, we'd always think, 'Well, Jack wouldn't quit. What would he give to be out here with us.' So we'd keep going and keep fighting, and we'd move on."
Notre Dame roots
Jack Essner is the youngest of three children in a family with roots that run deep at Notre Dame. Mary is a 1979 graduate of the school; her husband, Jim, was in the class of 1977; and their two other children, daughter Rachael Daume and son Taylor, are graduates.
The one thing Jack, targeted as a varsity starter for the first time by fourth-year coach Matt Vollink, does best is run. The back-line defender finished at or near the front in running drills. A 400-meter runner and a 300-meter hurdler on the track team, he said he had received a couple letters of interest from colleges.
Mary related Taylor's joking envy of his brother's gift: "Jack, he can just go out there and eat three cheeseburgers and then run."
That's what made it startling to Mary and everyone else when the slender, "natural runner" collapsed.
Vollink started his Monday practice with a 3-mile run on the school's cross-country course, planning to follow it up with some intense drills.
Schuchardt and Essner were trading places at the front of the pack as they paced each other, when Schuchardt noticed he was by himself. He turned around, only to find Essner lying face down about 10 yards from Martin, who saw him staggering up the hill.
Martin rushed over, and Schuchardt retreated to the scene.
Both had training in CPR. Martin, who had known the Essners for years, had been the head coach at Cape Girardeau Central High School the previous eight seasons and had taken the certification course every two years as required by the Missouri High School Activities Association.
The 16-year-old Schuchardt had trained extensively in CPR as a lifeguard with the city of Cape Girardeau -- "I always liked going in and practicing in case I ever needed it" -- the past couple of summers.
Neither had used CPR in a live crisis.
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"We rolled him over, and he was kind of breathing for a little bit, but then at one point, he completely quit," Schuchardt said. "So at that time, I checked for his pulse, and looked for breathing. You know, look, listen, feel, and I got nothing. I started CPR."
Vollink was more than 100 yards away at the starting point of the run, where one of the kids told him Essner had passed out.
"The alarm bells were not going off at first," Vollink said. "I just thought it was something small. As I walked up there and saw what was going on, you realize the severity of what was really going on."
Schuchardt and Martin took turns administering aid to Essner before Enderle arrived from the nearby soccer field and jumped in with Schuchardt.
Enderle, a certified athletic trainer at Saint Francis Medical Center who has worked with Notre Dame athletes since 2007, also never had used CPR in a live situation despite being an instructor of the life-saving technique.
Martin relayed further medical directions in a call to 911.
Paramedics soon arrived and treated Essner before taking him to Saint Francis.
The team assembled for prayer in the hospital chapel that night, and the school held a prayer service Tuesday, which was moved from the school chapel to the cafeteria to accommodate the numbers.
"Jack played soccer with a lot of boys in CAYSA (Cape Area Youth Soccer Association), so a lot of Central kids that he played soccer with were there and their parents, and friends of ours from the community were all there," Mary said.
It was followed by a seniors-only service in the chapel.
Though the school pulled together and rallied, lonely anguish was hard to shake.
"It's something I hope nobody ever has to go through, but I'm extremely thankful that everything worked out," Martin said. "It was very shaky for three days after that. 'Til his mother sent me a picture by text with Jack, his thumbs up, at the hospital. There was 48 hours where he was in a medically induced coma, and that was scary. There's not much sleep because you're questioning yourself, 'Did I do the right things? Did I do the compressions right versus breaths?'"
When Essner awoke from the coma that Wednesday, Mary said her son, an A Honor Roll student, repeatedly asked what had happened. She always replied, only to hear the same questions minutes later. It was troubling.
It wasn't until 4 a.m. Friday, when their son awoke, that Jim and Mary heard something different.
Jack said, "Mom," in a tone previously missing, followed by coherent questions about the day's impending medical procedure and a request for water.
"This was all different," Mary said. "I jumped up and I ran out and said, 'Charity! (the ICU nurse) Come in! He's awake, and he's back!'"
Essner moved to a regular room the next day and was released the following Monday, a week after his collapse. He returned home to a "Welcome Home, Jack" banner, signs in the yard and gift baskets, a continuation of the support from the Notre Dame community.
"They've been great, pretty much in every sense of the word, they've been there," Essner said.
But it's been an ongoing ordeal.
Essner attended the school year's first day of classes but still does not stay for full days. His defibrillator has shocked him 10 times -- the first at a school event, returning him to the hospital via ambulance -- but has not done so for the past month, as medication has kept his heart rate low.
He has less anxiety about his condition, which has yet to be diagnosed despite a battery of tests. His internal device records data that can be downloaded in search of answers.
"I know I am a rare survivor of this, so now I have the chance to impact someone else's life and help someone else if it ever happens to someone," Essner said. "If someone else lives through this, I'll be there to guide them and talk to them if they need. Another thing that will be good is maybe they can find some data on what's wrong with me and put that to work and prevent these things from happening, instead of just reacting when it happens."
He is not trained in CPR, but plans to learn when he returns to full health.
Schuchardt, a friend of Jack's since they both attended St. Vincent de Paul grade school, said even before the incident, he wanted to be an emergency-room doctor one day.
"I was just thankful that I just happened to stop on that hill, but I'm also thankful that JP was right behind Jack during that whole thing, too," Martin said. "If JP wasn't there, I don't know if it would have been ... it just ... everything worked out very well, and JP was huge in that whole thing. He was very calm, very composed."
Said Vollink: "It's one of those things where he was in the spot and stepped up unbelievably. It's hard to believe that a young man of his age had the maturity and the ability to stay that focused. I don't think I ever would have been able to have that kind of focus like he did and handle that kind of pressure and do what he did. Pretty impressive."
Mary called the timing and placement of people a miracle, noting all the times her son had gone out running by himself.
Essner said he owes everyone involved "eternally." It indeed will be a special Thanksgiving Day for a family that counts its blessings daily.
"Our family was pretty tight before, but if anything it's bonded us more," Essner said. "Yeah, it's just one of those things. Now a day seems so much more to me now than it did before. Before it was just kind of day in and day out and you just go to bed. Now a day that I don't have any racy heart issues or a day that I don't get shocked is a great day. It's one of those things where you just can't take every day for granted."
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