A star player on the American high school football team suffered a cardiac arrest within minutes of starting the game.
Collin Cotton was seen in images obtained by KRMG lying on the field of Victory Christian School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as doctors rushed to resuscitate him, on August 26, 2022.
Doctors were then seen carrying the unconscious high school student onto a stretcher and into an ambulance.
Cottonm was in a coma for days in a local hospital, but miraculously survived.
For the past two years, he has been advocating for awareness of cardiac arrest, the leading cause of death among young athletes in America. He and his mother remain grateful for the help of another mother who saved Cotton’s life.
Collin Cotton suddenly collapsed on the field of a high school football game from cardiac arrest on August 26, 2022
On the day of the game, Cotton stepped onto the court and was facing an edge runner he was nervous about, when he suddenly collapsed.
“We were just chatting with other parents, waiting for the next play, and then it went quiet,” said his father, Darren, told the Tulsa World.
“We look around and see a lot of players, and we see a leg sticking out – up in the air. We thought, ‘Ah, someone has a cramp.’ Nothing special, it’s warm.
‘Then we’re like, “I wonder what number it is.” So you start counting numbers and then you’re like, “Hey, I think it’s Collin. But it’s probably just a cramp or something.”
But as the players began to leave the field, Cotton’s parents realized something must be wrong. Darren ran onto the field and found his son unconscious and barely breathing.
He had his eyes rolled back and was barely breathing.
Images from the scene show family members standing around as doctors tend to Cotton
He was then loaded onto a stretcher and into an ambulance as the crowd applauded
One doctor then tried to feel his pulse, while another worked to clear his airway.
They tried chest compressions and a woman in the stands carried an oxygen tank with a breathing mask.
Eventually, doctors cut off Cotton’s shirt and football pads and Darren watched in horror as doctors fitted his son with AED pads.
Meanwhile, Cotton’s mother, Karissa, walked out to the field and collapsed to the ground in fear as those around her prayed for her son.
It is unclear how many times the AED went off before Cottonm was loaded into an ambulance.
Once in the ER, doctors inserted a breathing tube and Cotton was stabilized, but remained in a coma.
“We didn’t know if he was going to wake up. We didn’t know how he was going to wake up,” Karissa said.
Cotton, second from left, was diagnosed with Brugada syndrome – a condition that causes abnormal heart rhythms and cardiac arrests. He is pictured with his family
While he was sleeping, Karissa and Darren received a message from the nurses’ desk, saying that members of the other team were in the hospital and had brought gifts.
“They gave us a basket with a bunch of presents, a football signed by all of them, a bunch of signs,” Darren said.
“They were just beat up, and they were just great kids.”
After a few days, Collin woke up and was back to his old self, his parents said.
Doctors then placed a defibrillator and pacemaker in his body to control his heart rhythm. A genetic test revealed that he had Brugada syndrome, a condition that causes heart rhythm disorders and cardiac arrest.
Karissa is now crediting Kingston Whitmore’s mother with saving her son’s life.
Cotton’s parents are now crediting Lori Whitmore, Kingston Whitmore’s mother, with saving his life
Whitmore, who has a rare genetic condition, was an honorary team captain at Victory Christian School for the past three seasons.
The night Cotton collapsed, Whitmore’s mother, Lori, took one of her son’s oxygen tanks and a breathing mask to the field.
Karissa believes the oxygen can save her son from brain damage.
Sadly, Kingston passed away earlier this year at the age of 13. He lived 1,000 times longer than predicted.
When Cotton and his mother attended the funeral, the Whitmore family said that Kingston was born to save Collins’ life.
“It’s his funeral, and the fact that he raised me, and that was possibly his purpose in life — I mean, they even went so far as to say that — that his purpose in life was to save me. That’s pretty moving,” Cottonm said.
In Kingston’s obituary, Cotton is also mentioned by name.
“It is humbling to think that God could use the extraordinary life of a child with a terminal illness, who had only five days to live, was completely disabled, blind and deaf and could not walk, talk or do anything for himself, to save the life of another, simply by showing up.”
Cotton now says that when he attends the University of Georgia in the fall, he will wear a bracelet that says, “Run Your Race 4 Kingston.”
He will also continue his mission to educate others about sudden cardiac arrest.
“Before it happened to me, I had never heard of cardiac arrest,” Cottonm said. “I was lucky in my case, but other people may not be so lucky.”
Cotton lobbied for a bill requiring all public schools to have a heart emergency plan. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed the measure into law in July
He told how he ignored the warning signs that something was wrong with his heart before he went into cardiac arrest.
“During practice, I just went as hard as I could,” he said. “One day we were in the stands — it was just juniors and seniors — and I was pushing myself so hard I passed out.”
Cotton was unconscious for five minutes before the ambulance arrived. When he was taken to a local hospital, one of his electrocardiograms (a test to assess the health of the heart) was found to be abnormal.
But a second test revealed nothing and the doctors attributed the strange result of the first test to heat exhaustion at the time.
In retrospect, however, this was “kind of a precursor to the main film,” Cotton said.
He said he is now raising awareness about cardiac arrests in young athletes and that he and his family successfully lobbied Oklahoma officials to pass a bill requiring all public schools to have a heart attack emergency plan.
Governor Kevin Stitt signed the measure in July.