When a teenager’s heart stopped, his friends rushed to help – and their cardiopulmonary resuscitation saved his life

May 10 started like any other day for Laura Machnik. Before heading to work, she said goodbye to her 18-year-old son, JJ. He was on his way to a friend’s house for training that morning, and when she arrived at work, Machnik confirmed that he had arrived safely.

Just a few minutes later, her phone rang. It was the friend’s mother who was visiting JJ, and she was calling with news that Machnik had been dreading for years.

At age 14, JJ was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a genetic heart condition that can cause sudden cardiac arrest. He was an active athlete and never had other symptoms of the disease, such as shortness of breath or chest pain. But shortly after he started training with his friends Trevor Hodgins (14) and Giovanni Scafidi (18), his heart stopped.

“(She) called me and said, ‘You need to come to my house as soon as possible, JJ passed out on the treadmill,'” Machnik told CBS News. “I just asked, ‘Does he have a pulse?’ as I ran out the door from work … once I knew what was going on, I was just like, ‘OK, this is real. This is it.'”

When Machnik arrived, Hodgins and Scafidi immediately intervened, performing CPR and calling 911. When emergency responders arrived, Hodgins and Scafidi told paramedics JJ’s diagnosis so they could treat him immediately. His friends’ quick response and quick thinking helped save JJ’s life, his longtime cardiologist said.

“They gave him the best chance of survival,” said Dr. Matthew Martinez, a sports cardiologist and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy expert at Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey. “They told me it was less than a minute before they started CPR. Those are the kinds of things we really want to hear when we want to know how children fare after an event like this.”

What is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy?

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a genetic heart condition that affects about 1 in 500 people, according to Martinez. The disease causes the heart muscle to become abnormally thick, resulting in the heart no longer being able to pump blood efficiently.

There are two subtypes of the disease: obstructive and non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. JJ was diagnosed with non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which affects about a third of all patients. This form of the disease can cause the left ventricle to stiffen, but does not prevent blood flow like obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Martinez said children are typically tested for the disease if a parent is known to have it – and JJ’s father, Jeff, had been diagnosed with the disease several years earlier. JJ was tested for it at age 14 after a routine physical revealed abnormal test results.

Symptoms of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy include chest pain and difficulty breathing, according to the Cleveland Clinic website. Monitoring and treating the condition is all about measuring those symptoms and their impact on the patient’s life, Martinez said.

For JJ, an athlete and active teenager, that meant annual check-ups and careful consideration of which sports he would participate in. It also meant making sure that the people around him knew what to do if he were to suffer a sudden cardiac arrest.

“We talked about how you and your coaches can remember that low risk does not mean no risk,” Martinez said. “We have prepared for this. We have talked about Cardiopulmonary resuscitation with his mom and dad. We made sure the coaches knew, the high school knew, and he bought his own automated external defibrillator.”

JJ also made sure his colleagues and team members knew how to perform CPR, training that helped keep him alive when he collapsed in May.

“JJ is alive because his friends acted quickly and because we were prepared,” Martinez said.

Treatment of sudden cardiac arrest

On the way to the hospital, JJ suffered two cardiac arrests in the ambulance and had to be resuscitated by paramedics. After his condition was stabilized, he was taken to Morristown Medical Center. There he was seen by cardiologist Dr. Amirali Masoumi and began intensive treatment lasting several days.

The situation is “quite complicated,” Masoumi said. His heart, which normally pumps at about 70% of the capacity of a normal person, functiononly works at about 20%, said Martinez.

JJ was put into an induced coma and his body was cooled to preserve as much brain function as possible. Over the next 24 hours, his kidney function also began to decline and his heart continued to have problems beating. This prompted Masoumi to send JJ to a ECMO or heart-lung machine to preserve his organs. All this time, no one knew how severely JJ’s brain function would be affected, Masoumi said, which made care even more complicated.

“We gathered and had a very open conversation with the family, a tough, tough conversation. We told them that if he doesn’t wake up, if the brain doesn’t show signs of recovery, it doesn’t matter how many machines we have, it doesn’t matter if we resuscitate the heart and lungs, unfortunately our options are going to be limited,” Masoumi said. Three days after his collapse, on Mother’s Day, the family had an open conversation about the potential need for a heart transplant if JJ were to wake up.

“JJ is a borderline person,” his mother said. “The night before, a heart transplant was on the table. That’s how we went to bed. … Then we woke up and his heart started working. It just started working again. I said, ‘Could it be any different than JJ’s way of hearing the worst possible information and then saying, ‘Oh, wait, just kidding, here I am?’ That’s our son.”

In the early morning of May 14, there were still only limited signs of brain function, Masoumi said. But just a few hours later, JJ’s condition improved.

“I really didn’t expect him to wake up between 6:30 a.m. and 9 a.m. and start fighting,” Masoumi said. “It was extremely satisfying to hear that. The rest is easy because now we’re in a game we know. We know the heart. The brain is intact. He followed orders. We knew we would have options for him.”

On May 17, JJ celebrated his 19th birthday by taking some walks and starting physical and occupational therapy. He was released from the hospital on May 23, less than two weeks after being admitted. He now has an internal defibrillator implanted in his chest that will hopefully prevent future sudden cardiac arrests, Martinez said.

He will continue to be monitored regularly, Martinez said. Athletics are not possible right now, but Machnik said JJ has thrown himself into end-of-year activities like prom and his senior picnic. On June 20, he walked across the stage at his high school graduation.

Just days earlier, he had told CBS News that he was looking forward to this day and celebrating how far he had come since his sudden cardiac arrest a month earlier.

“After what was devastating, what happened, it’s the best thing that could have happened,” JJ told CBS News.