Testimonials

Basketball player’s life saved by coach’s CPR

E.J. Galloway had just been going up for a rebound in a summer league basketball game against Morton played at Jim Hill High in 2014. Suddenly feeling fatigued, E.J. was called to the bench by his coach.

Minutes later, E.J. fell unconscious, and Coach Willie Swinney began performing CPR on him to keep him alive.

“It took 10 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, so several people were taking turns doing CPR on me,” he said.

Once an ambulance arrived, emergency responders used an AED on E.J. to restore his heartbeat. He was taken to the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the Children’s Heart Center for care.

AED saves player’s life during football game

Today Tyler Free is a healthy 23-year-old, thanks to the quick use of an automatic external defibrillator when his heart stopped beating during a ninth-grade football game.

A wide receiver for the Ocean Springs Greyhounds, Free was running down the field when he died, said his mother, Shannon Free.

“For what seemed like an hour, I waited with the support of our Greyhound family for some kind of positive response from the field,” she said in an interview with the American Heart Association. “On that Monday night, Oct. 7, 2013, my son – a healthy, athletic, 15-year-old athlete – died from sudden death cardiac arrest. His life was saved by the trained, attentive individuals by means of CPR and by administering an AED device to shock his heart and revive him.”