EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio — Seventeen-year-old Zaharius Hillmon has basketball in his blood. His mom, Nasheema Anderson, said that he comes from a long line of basketball players.
"Since he could walk, probably before he could walk, he's been playing basketball," said Anderson.
Hillmon is a senior at Shaw High School and the starting guard for the varsity basketball team. Anderson said he has received countless physicals over the years.
"When everything checks out, you think everything checks out and they should go as hard as they can and play and participate," she said.
Zaharius was playing as hard as he could during his game on Jan. 12. Anderson was watching that game from a livestream while she was at home due to COVID-19 protocols.
"He is, like, stealing the ball. He was dunking the ball. He was, just, having a great game. It was the best game that I had seen him play all season," said his mom.
While Anderson is used to hearing cheers for "Z" during his games, she never expected to hear a student call out her name over the livestream.
"The young man was on the other line saying 'Zaharius’s mom! Zaharius’s mom! Hurry and get here. He is passed out and he's having a seizure,'" she said.
Zaharius collapsed in the locker room at halftime. David Silverstein is contracted out by Shaw High School as an athletic trainer. He had just been hired a couple of weeks prior to Jan. 12. He got to the locker room where Zaharius was in just seconds.
"He's down on the floor. His head is being cradled by a couple of his teammates," he said. "I check his pulse and find that he doesn't have one."
He immediately started CPR, something he has always practiced for but never actually performed on a person who needed it.
"I did that until East Cleveland EMS got there," he said.
Hillmon and Anderson were rushed to University Hospitals. Doctors found that Hillmon had a congenital heart defect that past physicals didn't catch.
"He had a heart attack and went into cardiac arrest," said Anderson.
He's now back at home and recovering from a heart surgery to fix the defect.
"He didn't know how good he could feel because he had always had this condition that he never knew he had and, so now, he feels like a brand new person," said Anderson.
Anderson said she hopes that parents will start asking for EKGs during their child's routine physical. She's also hopeful that more people will learn CPR.
"Everybody should learn CPR at some point in their life," she said.
She is thankful that Silverstein was there at the right time, as he was just hired weeks prior.
"He did it [CPR] to perfection and he saved my son's life and I will forever be truly grateful to him," she said.
Silverstein said he is just happy Zaharius is feeling better.
"Some greater power has big things planned for him, but it certainly feels great," said Silverstein.
March is National Athletic Trainer Month. It is meant to bring awareness to the important work of athletic trainers.
