In Houston, Texas a sixteen-year-old boy was nearly pronounced dead after falling off a rock climbing wall at a local gym, but to the shock of everyone, he awakened shortly after EMTs had given up on resuscitating him.
Fox 26 Houston reported that this young man: "climbed to the top of the wall, rang the bell, as we were told, and then his body went limp, and it looked like he was either playing around or passed out. They weren't quite sure and when they realized he was unresponsive, they lowered him slowly," explains Sammy's mother, Jennifer.
They would soon find out that 16-year-old Sammy had gone into cardiac arrest, his heart suddenly stopped. Workers at the gym, then paramedics, then doctors all performed CPR for two hours.
"They looked at us and said, 'I'm so sorry, but he's gone,'" says an emotional Jennifer.
Doctors left his devastated parents to say their goodbyes.
Five minutes later: "I started talking to him, just telling him how much I love him and sorry that we didn't know how to save him. Suddenly, as I started praying, my husband said, 'oh my gosh, he's moving,'" exclaims Jennifer.
Sammy is now in recovery and is making good headway on his physical therapy and overcoming his short-term memory loss, which both came as a result of his injury.
What's especially tragic is that this sadly is not the first time these parents have had to face the loss of a child. A few years before Sammy's fall, his brother Frankie had suffered a similar event, this time with seizures, but unfortunately, he passed away after a fatal seizure-related fall.
It turns out that both Sammy and his brother suffer from a genetic mutation from their mother's side that has caused both his cardiac issues and Frankie's seizure episodes.
It's a relief that they now know what the core issue is and hopefully both Sammy and his mother will get the medical help they need.
