LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (WKRC) - This is the story of an unlikely event that's more common than you might think.“Everything was just a normal Tuesday night.” That’s eStem Mets boy’s basketball coach Nathan Pottorff. He’s in his seventh year as a head coach, but his first with eStem.
On that Tuesday night in December during a boy’s basketball game in Little Rock, Arkansas, 16-year-old Cobe Isaac came off the bench into the varsity game.
“This is his first year playing varsity basketball, so he was excited and playing hard,” Pottorff said.The Mets were running a baseline out of bounds play. Isaac hit the court.
“My first thought was he probably took an elbow or something” Pottorff said. A nurse practitioner from the Arkansas Heart Hospital was at the game and she and Little Rock Christian's team, including its athletic trainer and its director of facilities, raced to Isaac's side.He didn't have a pulse. “(The nurse practitioner) said, ‘We rarely stay for boys’ games, but my daughter wanted to stay that night and we stayed.’” Pottorff said.
Within a minute, Little Rock Christian says they used a defibrillator, commonly known as an AED. The device's batteries had just been changed before the game.“It was just a matter of an hour,” said Eric Schmidt, Little Rock’s director of facilities. “When you put all those things together, it’s like terrible that it happened but it’s like God meant for it to happen at that time because he knew everything would be taken care of,” Pottorff said. Little Rock Christian said what they learned from the situation is that they actually need another AED. It will be their fourth.
“You hear stories about it,” Pottorff said, “but as a coach you’re kind of naïve like yeah I’m ready for it but it’s not going to happen to me.“But that night it happened to me.” For the last decade, an Arkansas law requires schools to have an AED and train staff in its use. It’s all because of a similar situation that took place in 2008, on a high school basketball court. Anthony Hobbs III collapsed and died. The law is named in his honor.
“We’ve all sat in the same room and watched those same videos and you’re like this is the extreme of the extreme,”Pottorff said. “Well I had to personally experience the extreme being real.” Isaac is on the mend and expected to make a full recovery, but that day still gives those involved goosebumps.
“The robotic voice came on and said heartbeat restored,” said Gary Arnold, the head of school for Little Rock Christian Academy.
In an ultra-quiet arena in Little Rock Arkansas, that was the reason fans started to cheer
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