FollowT.S. Eliot, the Modernist poet responsible for inspiring the Broadway musical Cats, abandoned his United States citizen status after moving to Europe as a young man. Eliot was certainly influenced by becoming an English citizen. “The Waste Land,” Eliot’s most notable poetic work, famously begins with the line, “April is the cruellest month….” While the murky British meteorology probably dampened Eliot’s mood, we simply cannot agree with his assessment of the month of April.
April in Oklahoma City means it is time for the American Heart Association’s Heart Walk, a 5-kilometer stroll starting at Bricktown Chickasaw Ballpark (see walk details in sidebar). The Heart Walk is one of the city’s largest events in terms of participants (over 10,000 annually) and funds raised (over $1 million each of the last two years).
Why all the fuss? Consider this: nearly 40 percent of all Oklahoma City-area deaths are attributed to cardiovascular disease. One out of every 88 children is born with heart disease. If those sound like long odds, think again. Team Seth is the Face of Heart Walk for 2015. Seth’s mother, Lisa Kinder, and self-described “walk team captain, cheerleader and spokesperson” Heather Peters shared the story behind Team Seth.
Seth Martin was a perfectly normal, active and seemingly healthy kid growing up in Cement. While playing in a basketball game as an 11-year-old in 2010, Seth collapsed and stopped breathing. He was revived by a quick-thinking coach who administered CPR. Seth was taken to the hospital and released without a diagnosis.
Eight months later, it happened again. Electrocardiogram tests showed some abnormality, but a heart catheterization did not reveal anything. Seth was eventually diagnosed with vocal cord dysfunction. A breathing coach taught him some exercises to help combat the symptoms when he felt things going awry. He continued to play basketball and stay active.
In January 2014, Seth was on the court again. After playing two games the night before, he showed signs of struggling and motioned for his coach to take him out of the game. Seth worked through his breathing exercises from the bench. Then he got up and started for the locker room and collapsed on the floor.
Using CPR and a defibrillator, Seth was revived three times. But the damage to his heart was too much to overcome. “He basically died of a massive heart attack after having several small heart attacks,” Lisa says. A registered nurse attending the game worked to revive Seth. She quickly noticed a clear airway, which ruled out vocal cord dysfunction as the cause of his sudden collapse.
Watching the scene unfold, Lisa recalls, “I knew after 5 or 10 minutes it wasn’t vocal cord dysfunction and he was probably going to die.” It is the most devastating thought for any parent to imagine. After years of thinking Seth’s heart was fine, the culprit in his death was identified as an anomalous coronary artery, or ACA. ACA is a birth defect that is nearly impossible to diagnose in youth, yet it is the second-leading cause of sudden death among young athletes.
Almost instantly, the school and community rallied to support and comfort Lisa Kinder. In the midst of her grief, Kinder and Peters, her best friend, realized something. “Grieving is hard for adults,” shares Peters, “but it’s really hard for kids.” Grief counselors came to the school, but “It’s hard for teenagers to open up,” says Peters. “We saw kids dealing with this and wanted to help them.”
The pair learned about Heart Walk in March 2014. They formed a team so Seth’s friends and classmates could walk together. Finding strength in community was the goal, so the team set a modest fundraising goal. “We would try to get 20 people to walk with us and raise $2,000,” Lisa recalls. “On the day of the walk, we had 82 people with us and raised over $5,000.”
Stories like Seth’s drive the American Heart Association’s work. “It’s about the families,” says Shannon Clarke, AHA’s Senior Corporate Market Director, Heart Walk. “Because of Seth, two schools wanted to buy CPR kits,” she says. “Getting the story out is a big part of Heart Walk. Lisa and Heather are pioneering this,” Clarke adds.
AHA’s Emily Rodas, Corporate Market Director, Heart Walk, has been a walk participant with company teams for several years. Now she is getting a different perspective. “It is a great honor for me to be on the other side,” Rodas says. “It is so much more meaningful when you hear these stories.”
Lisa Kinder and Heather Peters are just getting started. “We’ll keep Team Seth going as long as we can,” says Lisa. “We’ll be in wheelchairs and still doing it,” adds Heather. Nothing can bring Seth back to the basketball court, but Kinder is learning to make peace with that. “Making others aware is what we do now,” she says. The Team Seth motto on the back of her shirt says it all: “We walk in grief with hope of healing broken hearts.”
T.S. Eliot did have April all wrong. This month hope springs eternal, one step at a time.
Written by Sean Becker | Photography by Emily Brashier
