You gotta have (healthy) heart
Area student-athletes converge on IHS for sports health screenings
IMPERIAL — Student-athletes from as far away as Palo Verde flocked to Imperial High School Saturday for a health screening to confirm their fitness to play high school sports next year.
The event was organized the Imperial High School Career and Technical Education instructor Mary Cavazos and cardiologist Dr. Clara Padron-Spence. Among those on hand to assist with the expected 1,000 to 2,000 students were volunteer M.D.s, D.O.s, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and other health professionals from throughout the Valley.
A representative of the California Highway Patrol was also on hand to promote the department’s Start Smart program for young drivers.
Students passed through various stations where volunteers checked their weight, height, vision, blood pressure, pulse, flexibility, breathing and other health benchmarks.
“I’m so hungry, I can’t even think,” 14-year-old incoming Brawley freshman Madolyn Tigert told IV Press as she was working her way through the gauntlet of checkpoints. Tigert hopes to participate in volleyball and swimming next season.
Doctors on hand included two other cardiologists whom Padron-Spence enlisted to perform electrocardiograms on selected students to check for potential abnormalities in heart rhythm.
The free heart checks are a personal matter for Padron-Spence.
A family she’s close to lost their 18-year-old grandson to a sudden cardiac arrest while he was swimming. “This was a young, healthy kid,” she said. “No medical problems.”
As a result, she because involved with a San Diego-based organization, the Eric Paredes Save a Life Foundation, named in honor of a 15-year-old who also died of a sudden cardiac arrest. The organization’s mission to raise awareness of sudden cardiac arrest among parents, educators, physicians and elected officials.
“One high school student every three days will die of sudden cardiac death from undiagnosed heart disease,” she said.
Padron-Spence originally hoped to provide free ECGs to every student who came through Imperial High School for Saturday’s health screenings. But due to technical difficulties, the project had to be scaled backed to only those kids whose medical history or physical examination indicated they might be at risk.
Padron-Spence estimated about 300 students would receive ECGs.
On the chance a student’s ECG proved suspicious, then doctors would provide an echocardiogram — an ultrasound of the heart — to investigate further.
The cost to students was only $15.