Parents send their children to school every day assuming they'll return home. But that didn't happen Tuesday for the family of a MacArthur High School football player who briefly lost his life on campus.
Brianna Major will never forget the phone call she received about her brother, Kenny Major.
"They told me they just had to do CPR on him and I lost it,” Brianna recalled.
Kenny collapsed on the football field. The details were hard for her to hear.
"His heart did stop. He wasn't breathing. They did have to revive him," Brianna said as she held back tears.
MacArthur trainers Chad Sutherland and Jeffrey Schmidt are used to seeing students injured or sick, not dead.
"It got real pretty quick when I came out here and Coach Sutherland had already begun compressions and I knew he wasn't breathing just by looking at him. He was already becoming pale," Schmidt said.
Schmidt grabbed an AED. Using the device and providing multiple rounds of CPR brought Kenny back to life.
"I kind of feel like I was floating outside of myself and just doing all the procedures and everything we had been taught," Sutherland said.
"There was a brief time my brother was gone, and not just from me and my family, but from this world. It was the worst pain I ever felt," Brianna said.
Kenny is now recovering in the hospital. To his sister, the two and the coaches who helped her brother are heroes.
"I don't feel like a hero. I feel like that's what I'm trained to do and what I went to school for, why I do what I do," Schmidt said.
"I don't feel like a hero, I just did my job," Sutherland said.
"When the emergency happened, our guys did what they're trained to do and they saved this young man's life," said Ben Cook, MacArthur’s head football coach.
Brianna has this advice for everyone who hears her brother's story:
"No matter what happened, no matter what your sibling ruined in your personal mind, make sure they know you love them," she said.
Parents of high school athletes wanting to have their child's heart screened have an opportunity this weekend. August Hearts will conduct screenings at Alamo Stadium on Saturday. Click here to register.
