RICHARDSON, TX—A Dallas Jesuit soccer player is now recovering after he collapsed during a game Friday night.
That game was played at J.J. Pearce High School. During the final minutes, Christian Lerma fell to the turf.
Lerma, a junior, lead Dallas Jesuit to a 6A state soccer title last year. He scored the game-winning goal in overtime against Arlington Sam Houston.
When Lerma went down, Tara Grubbs rushed to his side. Grubbs is the head athletic trainer for J.J. Pearce High School.
“I looked at him, and his coach is there too--we made eye contact and I told him to call 911,” Grubbs said.
Lerma was having trouble breathing.
“At that point, I knew we were dealing with something serious,” Grubbs said.
Grubbs yelled for someone to bring her a defibrillator from the sideline, and got to work.
“I opened it up, and put the pads on,” she said. “It told us that we needed to deliver the shock, and then it told us to start compressions.”
“We kept doing that until an ambulance arrived,” she said. Lerma started showing signs of life and was taken to a hospital.
Saturday night, a tweet from the Jesuit Dallas Soccer account says Lerma is sore—but doing well.
Grubbs said Lerma might not be alive if she didn’t have a defibrillator on the sideline, something she says every trainer should carry on them.
And get this, she forgot it heading to the field—and made a point to go back to the field house to get it.
“Thank you Lord for saying something to me, because I turned around and brought it out,” she said.
Grubbs, who is trained to use a defibrillator, says this incident should highlight the importance of the device.
She added that people should educate themselves on their locations too.
As for Lerma, it’s not clear if he will return for the remainder of the season. Grubbs is just happy he’s doing ok.
“I was so glad to hear that,” she said. “It’s a miracle, you just don’t expect something like that to happen so quickly.”