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Chamberlain Coach Gave Family The Gift Of Life

Tribune photo by ROBERT BURKE

Chamberlain High boys basketball coach Doug Aplin saved Kenneth Brooks’ life during a practice on Oct. 31. Brooks’ mom, Yolanda Williams, sums it up this way: "I thank God."

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By NICK WILLIAMS of The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 30, 2007

TAMPA - Yolanda Williams walked out of her son's room at St. Joseph's Children's Hospital and into the hallway, trying to find a grip on reality.

While walking, Williams saw a middle-age man sitting in a chair, looking "as white as a ghost."

"Is he OK?" the man asked her.

The man was Chamberlain High School varsity boys basketball coach Doug Aplin. He was the man who saved her son's life.

That afternoon - as the Halloween evening approached - Kenneth Brooks, a 17-year-old junior basketball player at Chamberlain, had collapsed on the court during practice. He was participating in drills with his teammates when he experienced shortness of breath and felt lightheaded. Then everything went dark.

"I was screaming, 'Kenny, Kenny,'" Aplin said.

After calling his name several times, Aplin checked for a pulse. There wasn't one. Brooks had stopped breathing.

Aplin, 53, applied CPR, which he had to do through Brooks' nose because his mouth was filled with blood. Brooks had fallen face first onto the hardwood floor.

While Aplin applied CPR, the girls basketball coaches found an automated external defibrillator, a portable device used to restore normal heart rhythm to a person in cardiac arrest. An administrator contacted the paramedics, while Aplin shocked Brooks with the defibrillator and continued to apply CPR until he eventually awakened, in shock.

Hillsborough County athletic director Lanness Robinson said each school independently offers training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and the automated defibrillator before the school year, and certification for completing the course lasts two years.

In 2003, the county school district received a $1million federal grant that put at least one defibrillator in every public high school. The grant was part of $38 million awarded nationwide to 134 school districts. Robinson said schools have since purchased more defibrillators on their own.

'He Would Have Been Dead'

About 325,000 Americans suffer sudden cardiac arrest each year and more than 95 percent of them die before reaching the hospital, according to the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association. If CPR and defibrillation are not applied within 10 minutes after sudden cardiac arrest, there is virtually no chance of survival. However, when defibrillation is provided within five to seven minutes, the survival rate from sudden cardiac arrest is as high as 49 percent.

Once Brooks had calmed down, the paramedics strapped him to a stretcher and rolled him into an ambulance.

When she arrived at the hospital, Williams said, Brooks was awake. Aplin arrived minutes later.

"They said if he had gone any longer without a heartbeat, he would have been dead," Aplin said.

"I thank God he spared my son," Williams said.

A 32-year veteran coach, Aplin, also a former University of South Florida player who led the Bulls in scoring during the 1975-76 season, was thankful he remembered his CPR and defibrillator training.

"You're in front of other teachers practicing on a dummy, not thinking you'll ever have to use it," Aplin said.

Brooks stayed at the hospital for a week and a half, undergoing tests. He had a fractured jawbone and required stitches in his chin and lip from the fall he took.

Amazingly, Williams said all of her son's tests were negative and doctors couldn't find a reason why his heart had stopped. Brooks was given clearance to play basketball after taking his required physical examination, but doctors at St. Joseph's discovered a small heart murmur. Williams has the same condition, but said it never led to heart failure and never kept her out of sports as a high school athlete. Williams said doctors also planted an automatic defibrillator inside Brooks' chest.

Doctor Gives Teen Green Light

About 125 athletes younger than 35 involved in organized sports die of sudden death in the United States each year, Barry J. Maron of the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation told The Associated Press. The institute tracks such deaths in a national registry.

Two weeks ago, Brooks returned to school. The first person he and his mother wanted to see was Aplin. "When he saw [Brooks], his eyes got real big," Williams said. "Coach Aplin is my angel."

"There is no way to thank Coach for that," Brooks said. "I'm forever grateful to him."

Williams said Brooks can't participate in basketball for six weeks but has been given the green light by his doctor to play when he recovers. Williams, however, doesn't know if she will allow her son to play this season or the next.

"I would just worry all the time," she said.

For Brooks, life is different. It seems more delicate.

"I don't take anything for granted anymore," he said.

As for Aplin, he may have lost a potential star player for a season, but that's the least of his worries.

"Maybe he'll be able to play again, but what matters is the kid is alive," he said.

Reporter Nick Williams can be reached at (813) 865-4848 or nwilliams@tampatrib.com.

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