Feeling happy to be alive following a serious cardiac arrest incident this fall, Charlie Piper, 15, can’t wait to be fully back on his feet again, training with his fellow runners at Scarborough High School.
While Piper is thankful for the help of his father and sister in saving his life on Nov. 5, his mother, Nathalie Descheneaux, also can’t say enough about the quick response from the Scarborough first responders.
“Their quick actions saved our son’s life,” she said.
She’s also thankful to the staff at Maine Medical Center and the pediatric cardiology team there, who have provided Piper with a “remarkable (level of) care” since he first arrived at the hospital unconscious a little more than a month ago.
Descheneaux said her son suffered from “a ventricular fibrillation cardiac arrest at home” and after further tests, he’s been diagnosed with Wolff Parkinson White, “a condition in which there is an extra abnormal electrical pathway between the upper and lower chambers of the heart that can cause fast and erratic heart beats.”
She said the “extra electrical pathway is present at birth and fairly rare.” In fact, up until the incident in November, Piper’s seemingly good health was not in question.
It’s another story for his younger sister, Melina, 13, who was born with a single ventricle heart and has had three open-heart surgeries at Children’s Hospital in Boston– the first one when she was just 5 days old.
Descheneaux said Melina’s condition still requires treatment. In fact she received a cardiac catheter procedure recently, which was completed just a week after her brother went through the process, as well.
Descheneaux and her husband, Chris Piper, are co-owners of Coastal Rehab in Cape Elizabeth, where she is an occupational therapist and her husband a physical therapy assistant. The two have been married for 16 years and have lived in Scarborough for the past 11.
Descheneaux said it was Melina who found her brother gasping for air on the morning of Nov. 5.
“She immediately alerted us. I called 911 and my husband initiated CPR under the dispatcher’s guidance,” Descheneaux recalled. “The first responders found Charlie without a pulse. They used an automated external defibrillator to get his heart beating again (and) he was rushed to Maine Medical Center, where he was unconscious for about 20 hours.”
The scary part, she said, is that her son had no warning signs. Since the incident, he’s had an electrophysiology study to test the electrical activity in his heart, along with a catheter ablation.
Descheneaux described the ablation procedure as doctors inserting a flexible catheter tube inside his heart, which was followed by “a zap of radiofrequency energy (to destroy) the problem-causing tissues.”
Piper is now home from the hospital, but is being “closely monitored by his cardiologist,” according to his mother.
While he’s anxious to return to more normal activities, he has enjoyed the chance to “play games on my phone and watch tons of movies,” which he normally wouldn’t be allowed to do.
Piper said he’s still suffering from mild, short-term memory loss and attention issues “from my brain missing oxygen for a few minutes.”
But, he added, “I make improvements every day (and) everyone has been great to me. I feel fantastic and happy to be alive.”
Descheneaux said since her son’s heart attack, “the support from the community has been overwhelmingly positive. The day after the event, the entire Scarborough cross-country team came to the ICU to drop off cards and posters of encouragement.”
She said they also all showed up a few days later for a team visit and said the track coach at Scarborough High, Derek Veilleux, also came to see him, which “helped boost his morale. At the New England Championships the Scarborough girl’s team ran with ‘Charlie’s Angels’ signs on their calves.”
In addition, Descheneaux said, “friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, teachers, school counselors, (just) everyone has been incredibly supportive. People have rallied behind us helping us though this emotionally traumatic event.”
Descheneaux added, “Our employees at Coastal Rehab have (also) raised hundreds of dollars to provide CPR training to honor Charlie. We are very proud to be surrounded by such thoughtful and generous people.”
She said the family has always said that Piper “is a super sweet boy who has a heart of gold. He is so kind to everyone and now he’s on the receiving end.”
The support of his teammates, Piper said, “means the world to me. I love those guys. I wake up every morning looking forward to the day I can start training with them again.”
Charlie Piper, third from left in front row, can’t wait to start training again with his fellow runners at Scarborough High School after being sidelined by cardiac arrest this fall.
Siblings Melina Piper, 13, and Charlie Piper, 15, of Scarborough, have both dealt with serious heart conditions in their young lives.
Charlie Piper, a 15-year-old sophomore at Scarborough High School, is fast recovering from cardiac arrest in early November. His hope is to be back on his feet and running with the school’s track team by the spring. Here, he undergoes a stress test at his cardiologist’s office. Courtesy photo
At the New England Championships, held in Vermont this fall, members of the girls cross-country team at Scarborough High wrote messages of support on their legs for schoolmate Charlie Piper, who was recently diagnosed with a life-threatening heart condition.
Charlie, Nathalie, Melina and Chris Piper are thrilled to be spending the Christmas holidays together after Charlie, 15, suffered a serious cardiac arrest this fall. Courtesy photos
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