Hollidaysburg athlete advocates for CPR training after almost dying on field

WTAJ (Altoona, PA)

October 22, 2024

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. (WTAJ) — A local high school athlete is advocating for all high school coaches to be CPR certified after nearly dying on the field one month ago, raising awareness of how his coaches’ fast action saved his life.

“I first got familiar with the, with cardiac arrest from Damar Hamlin, when he collapsed on the field,” said Spencer Davis, a sophomore at Hollidaysburg Area Senior High School. “And I wouldn’t think it would happen to someone as young as me.”

In mid-September, Spencer also collapsed on the football field during one of his practices with the school’s football team.

“The whole day is blank. That Wednesday, I don’t remember any of it,” Spencer said.

But it’s a day that his mom, Jennifer Davis, won’t forget. She was on a walk when she decided to stray from her usual route and see how her son’s practice was going. As she neared the field, she saw someone was injured.

“I looked over and I saw that there was a player down and I couldn’t see who that was. Kids get hurt all the time and so I kept walking,” Jennifer said.

She continued on until a member of the coaching staff approached her, telling her, “Jen, you need to get over there right now.” It was her son she saw laying on the field after he took a hit to his chest which sent him into sudden cardiac death.

Running over to the field, Jennifer feared the worst.

“I was walking and I just kept like, I kept grabbing my face in my hands and I was like, God, please don’t take him from me,” she said.

She watched in shock as the coaching staff took turns performing CPR on Spencer, breaking his ribs to get access to his heart, before shocking him twice with an automated external defibrillator (AED), time working against them and Spencer’s chances of survival possibly decreasing with each passing minute.

“It’s hard to say if all the pieces of our emergency action plan didn’t come and work perfectly and smoothly, it’s hard to say what the outcome could have been when a sudden cardiac arrest happens,” said Amy Smearman, Hollidaysburg Area Senior High School’s athletic trainer. “You have primarily about three to five minutes to initiate immediate CPR and attach an AED.”

Smearman was close to the practice when she heard what happened to Spencer. She rushed over with the AED she keeps on her cart, treating him within only minutes. By the time the ambulance arrived, Spencer had both a rhythm and a pulse, defying the odds.

“The chance of survival is probably a little bit less than 10%,” said Kristi Montrella, a certified nurse practitioner of cardiology at UPMC Altoona and Bedford. “For Spencer to survive the event, be completely neurologically intact, with no residual damage is truly astounding and is directly attributed to the fact that his coaches and athletic trainer were properly prepared for this situation.”

Montrella’s husband, Joe Montrella, is one of the Hollidaysburg Area Senior High School assistant football coaches who performed CPR on Spencer, Facetiming his wife in the process to make sure they were doing everything they could.

“That is not something they do every day. They all three chose to be CPR certified and they were able to respond appropriately. Within 30 seconds of making their assessment, they imitated CPR,” Kristi Montrella said, explaining that her husband realized the importance of being CPR certified after Damar Hamlin’s collapse, wanting to be prepared in case it ever happened to one of his own players.

Montrella said being prepared is so important, because in most cases of sudden cardiac death, there are no warning signs, and no way to prevent it.

“Unfortunately, Spencer’s event, again, if it goes the diagnosis that is currently being considered, it wasn’t something that could have been prevented or predicted,” Montrella said.

The same CPR that revived Spencer is only initiated by bystanders about 40% of the time, according to Montrella. In most cases of sudden cardiac arrest or death, by the time the patient receives treatment from emergency medical responders, it’s already too late.

“If this would happen in another school district, I don’t know if it’s the same outcome, I really don’t,” David Davis, Spencer’s dad, said.

While Spencer is recovering from broken ribs, and on track to make a full recovery, the concern for what could happen to someone else’s child experiencing sudden cardiac death has prompted the Davis family to spread awareness and work to raise money to provide AEDs to schools that don’t have one or the funds to purchase one.

“This is the beginning of a new era that the Davises are going to go out and share and educate as much as we can to, God forbid this would happen to another player, that they would have the same outcome,” Jennifer said.

The family is also advocating for all coaches to be CPR certified, an initiative backed by the coaching staff that saved Spencer’s life.

“I’m seeing it firsthand. I think all coaches should be CPR trained and we are going to try to make an initiative, at least at Hollidaysburg School District to try to do more,” Smearman said.

The Davis family and coaches from Hollidaysburg will host a CPR training event at the high school’s gymnasium Thursday, Nov. 14, starting at 5:30 p.m. Anyone interested in learning CPR basics is asked to attend the event, where there will be 12 practice dummies and 12 practice machines.

Spencer may retire from taking the field under Friday Night Lights, but said his sports career isn’t over, pending medical clearance.

“Baseball has always been my biggest sport, and I think I’m just going to stick with that,” Spencer said.

No matter what comes next in life for Spencer, he knows he has an entire community cheering him on.

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