Thursday, April 23, 2009

PREP PLAYER GETS EXTRA INNINGS AFTER HEART ATTACK

By John Millea of the Minneapolis Star Tribune

Mike Spillman of Cannon Falls is back playing baseball, after a heart attack nearly killed him.

Mike Spillman was finally back in action, playing high school baseball after months of waiting for doctors to give him the go-ahead. In his first at-bat of the season earlier this month, the junior from Cannon Falls lashed a run-scoring double against Kasson-Mantorville. He later advanced to third base, sliding headfirst into the bag.
"When he did that, the fans were gasping," Cannon Falls coach Bucky Lindow said.

The fans weren't gasping at Spillman's speed. They were gasping because he has a pacemaker in his chest.
It's quite a story: A teenager collapses, is brought back from the brink of death and returns to playing the game he loves.

Seeing Mike on the baseball field is a relief for his family. The hard part came in September, when he nearly died.
"I don't even think about it, because he's safer now than he was without the pacemaker," Penny Spillman said of her son.

Mike, 17, collapsed in the school gym during a pickup basketball game. Gym supervisor Ross Peterson, who is a physical education instructor, and students Joel Willenbring and Demetre Growette administered CPR. A police officer quickly arrived on the scene and used the school's automated external defibrillator to jolt Mike's heart into rhythm.

"They brought me back," Mike said quietly last week, sitting in the home dugout at John Burch Park in Cannon Falls, located between the Twin Cities and Rochester.

An ambulance took him to the local hospital and a helicopter transported him to St. Paul Children's Hospital. He was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart muscle that forces the heart to work harder than normal.

The disease affects an estimated one in 500 Americans and is the most common cause of sudden cardiac death in people under 30. Doctors told Gary and Penny Spillman that only one in 10 people with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy survives cardiac arrest.

Basketball player Hank Gathers of Loyola Marymount University died from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in 1990, and the disease claimed the life of Reggie Lewis of the Boston Celtics in 1993.

The Spillmans have no family history of the disease, and Mike's parents and three older siblings have all been tested and cleared.

Doctors barred Mike from playing basketball because of the stress it would put on his heart. He gave up football a couple of years ago, and it's out of the question now. But when he was cleared to play baseball, "You should have seen the smile on his face," Gary said.

Mike wears a lightweight protective shirt under his baseball jersey. The shirt, designed for in line skating, provides padding over the chest.

"If I take a line drive or a one-hopper into my pacemaker, it won't damage anything," he said.

The pacemaker, which also is a defibrillator, was implanted beneath his skin above the heart. Mike said
the pacemaker usually kicks in when he's in deep sleep and his heart rate slows. The defibrillator provides a backup system in case of cardiac arrest.

Mike, who plays third base and first base, is a heads-up ballplayer, Lindow said. "He's one of those guys who really understands the game," he said.

Spillman has received great support from his friends. While he sat out the basketball season, the rest of the team wore wristbands with the word "Moo" on them, an ode to the Spillman family dairy farm and Mike's nickname: Milker.

"He's no different [with the pacemaker]. He's still Mike," said classmate and baseball teammate Dan Venn. "He's a good kid. He's fun, he likes being goofy, but he works hard and does everything he should."

Mike is involved with a program called Anyone Can Save A Life, administered by the Minnesota State High School League and the Medtronic Foundation. His story is one of several on the website
www.anyonecansavealife.org. The public relations commitment is important to him.

"He told us, 'I don't want to read about the next kid who goes through this,'" Gary said.


Mike has been warned to stay away from large magnets or large collections of magnets, which could disrupt his pacemaker. The only such place he could think of is a store at the Mall of America that sells only magnets. His buddies don't mind giving him a hard time about it, either.

"They say they're going to buy me a gift certificate," he said with a smile.

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