A life hangs in balance - Part 1 of 3 Oct 2, 2003
by Scott Fowler, Charlotte Observer
For most of 17 seconds, Adam Quilty looks like a star. He has never been much of an athlete. But this slice of videotape displays Adam's most glorious athletic moment -- a darting sprint past three defenders in a lacrosse game for Charlotte's Vance High. Then the videotape shows a lot more. Too much more, really. It scares everyone who sees it. Adam is 17 years old when those momentous 17 seconds begin. He is racing toward the goal. When they end, Adam has collapsed to the ground. Untouched. His heart has stopped.

Doctors seek the cause of the mysterious collapse - Part 2 of 3 Oct 2, 2003
by Scott Fowler, Charlotte Observer
When paramedic Ryan Jones lowers the defibrillator paddles to Adam Quilty's chest for the third time, the 17-year-old Charlotte Vance High lacrosse player has been without a pulse for 19 minutes. There's a doctor on the scene -- Chuck Frederick. By chance, he had been refereeing this lacrosse game in Greensboro when Adam collapsed and his heart stopped. Frederick, an anesthesiologist, caught up to Adam seven seconds after the fall. Soon afterward, the doctor and a certified athletic trainer at the game had begun cardiopulmonary resuscitation, trying to save Adam's life. The CPR has helped. Adam isn't dead. But Dr. Frederick thinks to himself that even if Adam doesn't die, serious brain damage is likely.

Goal of playing again propels Adam's recovery - Part 3 of 3 Oct 2, 2003
by Scorr Fowler, Charlotte Observer

Use of emergency medical equipment growing Oct 2, 2003
by Scott Fowler, Charlotte Observer

Want to save a life Oct 2, 2003
by Scott Fowler, Charlotte Observer
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, kept Vance High lacrosse player Adam Quilty alive for 19 minutes after the Charlottean suffered a cardiac arrest in March 2000. A portable defibrillator -- also called an automatic external defibrillator (AED) -- was able to shock his heart back into rhythm.

NY defibrillator law goes into effect Oct 11, 2003
Starting September 1, all public schools will be required to have automated external defibrillators on school premises and at all school-related events, in accordance with a law recently signed by Governor George Pataki.

Karen Acompora: On A Mission
So No More Young Athletes Die From A Blow To The Chest
By Brooke deLench, Mom'sTeam.com

During a recent Oprah show on summer safety, I learned of the Louis Acompora Memorial Foundation, that Karen Acompora and her family founded and are now running. The foundation is a wonderful tribute to her son, Louis, and a gift to all parents with children who are in harms way while playing youth sports. As I watched Karen and her husband John, I wanted to climb through the television and give her a big hug and to thank her for the mission she is on to make sure that no other child dies while playing a sport.

It was the morning of March 25, 2000. Fourteen-year old Louis Acompora was nervous. He was getting ready to play his first high school lacrosse game as the goalie for his Northport (Long Island) High School freshman team. His parents, John and Karen Acompora, arrived just as the teams were lining up before the game began, saw their son shake hands with the opposing team's goalie and head back to his goal, where he ceremonially banged the pipes with his goalie stick. Louis nodded to his father in the stands as if to say, “I've made it.”

Less than a half an hour into the game, Louis blocked a shot with his chest as he had done countless times before. He picked up the ball, took a few steps, and then, has he attempted a clearing pass, collapsed. John Acompora assumed that his son had had the wind knocked out of him, but to the shock of his parents, the coach and bystanders, Louis was soon unconscious, not breathing, and without a pulse. Rescuers at the scene administered Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) until emergency medical personnel arrived. Attempts to restore a normal heart rhythm through electric shock (defibrillation) were unsuccessful, however, and Louis was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

What caused such a beautiful, normal, apparently healthy teenager to suddenly die? The Acomporas soon learned that Louis had died of a rare and too often fatal condition called Commotio Cordis (ka-Mo-sho) that occurs as a result of a blow to the chest during a critical interval in the cardiac cycle, throwing the heart into a lethal abnormal heart rhythm called ventricular fibrillation. They also learned, sadly, that Louis's death might have been prevented had an automatic external defibrillator been nearby. “Had there been a defibrillator on the field, Louis might have had a chance,” said Karen.

Two weeks after their son's death, Karen and John Acompora, and Louis's seventeen-year-old sister, Alyssa, started the Louis J. Acompora Memorial Foundation so that no other family would have to suffer a similar tragedy. They set up a website and have been lobbying on Long Island and across the country (appearing in May 2001 on “The Oprah Show”) to raise public awareness about Commotio Cordis and to do what they can to see that there is an automatic external defibrillator (AED) in every school and at every game and practice in a sport, like lacrosse, where there is a risk of a blow to the chest.

Typical of Karen's efforts was a recent appearance, along with representatives of the American Heart Association, at a meeting of Nassau County, Long Island athletic directors, at which she distributed a kit prepared by the foundation consisting of literature on Commotio Cordis and a powerful video in which her husband talks about Louis.

As a direct result of the efforts of Karen and her husband the Northport school district has since purchased 22 AEDs and distributed them to its schools and every bus carrying a team to an away game has an AED. And After three months of strong lobbying by the Acomporas, the New York State Education Department dropped its opposition to the use of AEDs and agreed to let each school in the state decide for itself whether it needed AEDs.

“When this happened to Louis a year ago, it was like, 'who knew?” John Acompora said. “Now they do know. It's almost to the point where it's shame on you if you don't have a defibrillator.”

MomsTeam has made a commitment to help the Acomporas get the message out to every family who has a child playing youth sports.

Donations May be Sent To:
Louis J. Acompora Memorial Foundation
P.O. Box 767
Northport N.Y. 11768