DENVER — Family of 4-year-old boy with heart failure Their heartbeat stopped hours ago, and they gathered at Children's Hospital Colorado last month to say their final goodbyes to Cartier McDaniel.
When they weren't praying at Cartier's bedside after doctors told his parents, Destiny Anderson and Dominic McDaniel, it was only a matter of time before life support machines could no longer keep his body functioning. Some people slept in the waiting room. Properly without heart rate.
All attempts to restart his heart failed.
“That was the worst moment of my life. The whole hospital room was spinning. I was shaking. I couldn't believe something like this could happen,” Anderson said.
But in nothing short of a medical miracle for Anderson and McDaniel, their young son's heart started beating on its own again 19 hours after it stopped.
Anderson and McDaniel said doctors told them there was no scientific or medical explanation for why Cartier's heart started beating again. Doctors from Cartier's medical team were not available for comment this week, the hospital said.
But McDaniel said there is a spiritual explanation: “It was God.”
Cartier's ordeal began on April 8th. Anderson had a fever that he treated with Tylenol.
“I thought it was just a cold and would go away,” she says.
The next day his condition worsened. His hands and feet were cold, his mouth was blue and sweaty, there were dark circles around his eyes, and he had trouble breathing.
That day, he drank a lot of water and slept in bed. Anderson thought that was strange since he is usually an active and curious child.
She said she knew something was really wrong when Cartier wet the bed.
She called the nursing line at Children's Hospital Colorado, which advised her to go immediately after hearing her symptoms.
Anderson and McDaniel said that during diagnostic tests for conditions such as diabetes, Cartier's eyes rolled to the back of his head and doctors were unable to find a pulse. They said he went into cardiac arrest.
They started CPR, but it had no effect. Anderson watched helplessly.
“The doctors were compressing his chest,” she said. “I started crying and getting hysterical.”
Medical staff took her out of the emergency room.
According to the National Institutes of Health, cardiac arrest occurs when the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops pumping, stopping blood flow to the brain and other vital organs.
The agency estimates that approximately 300,000 to 450,000 people die each year in the United States.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people who survive cardiac arrest can suffer brain damage and internal organ damage.
In 2019, British hiker Audrey Schoeman, 34, survived what doctors called the longest cardiac arrest in Spain's history after her heart stopped for six hours during a snowstorm, according to Today.com.
Unlike McDaniel, she did not receive immediate medical attention, but she managed to survive.
emergency room Doctors diagnosed McDaniel with an infection caused by group A streptococcus. Cartier's parents said Streptococcus A can cause a variety of infections, from strep throat to scarlet fever, but other than that explanation, they don't know what kind of infection their son suffered from.
The condition caused sepsis, the body's extreme response to infection, the researchers said.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than 75,000 infants and children in the United States develop severe sepsis each year. About 7,000 of them died, according to the Alex Lemonade Stand Foundation, a childhood cancer charity, more than the 1,800 children who die from cancer each year.
When Cartier's heart stopped, doctors put him on a type of life support that pumps blood into an artificial lung, adding oxygen and removing carbon dioxide, his parents said.
Dr. Michael Fandora, a pediatric cardiologist at Children's Healthcare in Atlanta, said the treatment can temporarily save patients even if their hearts aren't working, but doctors can't rely on other organs or other parts of the body. He said it was necessary to determine whether that portion would recover. He was involved in Cartier's treatment but did not review his medical records.
Medical personnel spent 30 minutes trying to revive McDaniel because his bloodstream was being attacked by streptococcus A, his parents said. Cartier was then transferred to the intensive care unit.
“At this point, we're just hoping for the best,” Anderson said.
Doctors told the family that Cartier was unlikely to survive.
“He was on life support, but it was only a matter of time before the machine stopped working,” Anderson said doctors told him.
That night, other family members went to the hospital to say goodbye to their 4-year-old son. His parents say they are “natural guardians” who enjoy thrill-seeking adventures like finding spiders and playing arcade games.
“I'm not going to lie, I had doubts that everything would work out. I'm human,” Anderson said. Anderson has six other children, three with McDaniel. “I'm thinking, 'How do I tell my kids that I can't bring my brother home?'”
“I was trying to reconcile that this might be what God wanted.”
She said she relied on her faith and asked God to be with her son.
Soon after, Cartier's heart started beating.
Cartier's parents said doctors initially thought Cartier would go blind because the part of his brain that controls vision had been damaged by lack of oxygen. However, doctors later changed their prognosis and said he would maintain his vision.
He is still on dialysis and on a breathing tube, and has had multiple skin grafts because his skin has deteriorated due to infections.
Daniel A. Velez, chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Phoenix Children's Hospital, said the quick work of hospital staff in Colorado appears to have succeeded in providing Cartier's brain with a level of oxygen that gave him a chance of survival. Told.
“His breathing has improved somewhat,” said Velez, who was not involved in Cartier's treatment and had not reviewed his medical records. “It's been an amazing recovery.”
Velez said Cartier's long-term prognosis is uncertain because the ability of a child's developing brain and kidneys to recover is often unpredictable.
Other organs may also have been damaged, Fundora said.
According to his parents, there is currently no plan for Cartier to be discharged from the hospital.
Anderson said she blames herself for not taking her to the hospital sooner, as McDaniel suggested.
“If we had waited longer, things would have progressed,” she said. “I waited too long.”
