Teen who went into cardiac arrest in basketball game remains on life support days later

A high schooler who went into cardiac arrest during a basketball game in Michigan remains on life support days later, according to media reports.

Cartier Woods, a senior at Northwestern High School in Detroit, suffered the medical event during a game on Tuesday, Jan. 31, McClatchy News reported. School officials said he was rushed to a hospital and put on life support.

It’s unknown what caused his heart to stop.

The teenager has not woken up as of Thursday, according to WWJ.

“He was very healthy — he loved basketball,” Shantell Woods, Cartier’s cousin, told WJBK. “He was very amenable, respectful. We’re just asking for prayer — we need it.”

What happened to Cartier Woods?

In the first quarter of Northwestern’s game Tuesday against Douglass High School, Cartier approached his head coach.

“Coach, I’m dizzy. I need to come out,” Cartier said, according to Douglass assistant coach Roland Eason, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Moments later, he collapsed near the bench, according to The Detroit News. Players were “distraught, and upset and crying” as they watched coaches attempt to bring Cartier back to life, the opposing coach said.

“They did all that stuff (CPR) and the ambulance came and took over, took him down the street to Henry Ford (Hospital),” Jay Alexander, the executive director of athletics for the school district, told The Detroit News. “He was never alert, that’s why I guess they are saying cardiac arrest, because his heart stopped but it wasn’t a heart attack.”

CPR was administered to Cartier for nearly an hour, WDIV reported.

Cartier’s family told WJBK they are unsure why he went into cardiac arrest, as he was “in good health and so active.”

What can cause a teenager to go into cardiac arrest?

While it’s rare, it’s not unheard of for young people to go into sudden cardiac arrest.

“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 2,000 young, seemingly healthy people under 25 in the United States die each year of sudden cardiac arrest,” according to HealthyChildren.org.

The Mayo Clinic said “sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death in young athletes.”

Sudden cardiac arrest happens without warning when “the heart beats irregularly, causing the heart to malfunction and stop beating unexpectedly,” according to The University of Kansas Health System.

Conditions that could lead to cardiac arrest in a young person include thickened heart muscle, heart rhythm disorders, blunt chest injuries or a heart structure problem present at birth, the Mayo Clinic said.

While it is unknown if Cartier had received a COVID-19 vaccination, two researchers have “baselessly” claimed a connection between the administration of the vaccine and 1,500 people who purportedly went into cardiac arrest during that time span, according to the Associated Press, which reported there is no validity to this assertion.

“The data presented here does not support the notion that vaccines have caused an increase in sudden death,” Dr. Neel Chokshi, medical director of Penn Medicine’s Sports Cardiology and Fitness Program, told the AP.

Myocarditis — inflammation of the heart muscle — is one possible side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine, experts say. But it remains rare , with many experts saying the condition is more likely to be caused by catching the coronavirus instead.

“The risk of developing myocarditis among males ages 16-19 after a third dose was about 1 in 15,000,” according to the American Heart Association. “Other research shows COVID-19 infection poses a higher risk for myocarditis than vaccines.”

One 2022 study from researchers at the Penn State College of Medicine, for example, found you are seven times more likely to develop myocarditis after being infected with the virus than those who just received a COVID-19 vaccine.

“COVID-19 infection and the related vaccines both pose a risk for myocarditis,” study lead author Dr. Paddy Ssentongo said in a news release. “However, the relative risk of heart inflammation induced by COVID-19 infection is substantially greater than the risk posed by the vaccines.”

This story was originally published February 3, 2023 at 6:56 AM with the headline "Teen who went into cardiac arrest in basketball game remains on life support days later."