`I GOTTA WAKE UP NOW'
USC's Iwuchukwu, who survived a scary cardiac event last summer, is back
LOS ANGELES >> As USC’s players walked around the perimeter of the Galen Center court, shaking hands with fans following a win over Colorado, everyone wanted a little extra time with a player who had not recorded a single stat.
People stopped Vincent Iwuchukwu, the 7-foot-1 freshman who had just made his collegiate debut six months after suffering cardiac arrest at practice. They
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offered words of encouragement, and Iwuchukwu nodded politely, said thank you, even picked up a couple of babies like a political candidate.
But Iwuchukwu was waiting to get to the end of the procession. His parents, Anastecia and Vincent Sr., waited with four of his five sisters. When Iwuchukwu arrived, the family embraced.
“Having my mom and dad there and having my sisters there was everything,” Iwuchukwu said. “They are my rock.”
“That hug was a moment for us,” Vincent Sr. added. “We all told him, ‘We told you it was going to happen one day.’ We thank God for everything. It was a moment.”
The day of
A collective memory can be a tricky thing to get straight. Especially after a traumatic situation, when adrenaline spikes and details begin to blur together. But these are the generally accepted facts of July 1.
It was a summer workout. The team had lifted weights in the morning, and in the afternoon was going through an hourlong practice. As the team concluded its second period of action, assistant coach Eric Mobley noticed something different about Iwuchukwu.
The 19-year-old freshman had been having a good practice. But his energy was starting to lag, and when he caught a rebound,
the slap of hand against leather didn’t come with its usual pop. So as the team paused for a water break, Mobley suggested that head coach Andy Enfield check on Iwuchukwu.
“I was like, ‘I know he’s tired but there was something in the eyes,’” Mobley said. “I just watched him the whole time.”
Enfield dribbled a ball while speaking to Iwuchukwu, who was seated with a cup of water on USC’s bench. The freshman had started to feel dizzy soon after sitting down. When he began to shake, even Mobley thought Iwuchukwu was simply goofing around.
“Because he jokes all the time,” Mobley explained. But then Iwuchukwu began to slump over to his side. “When the water spilled over, I knew it was serious. I ran over here as fast as I could.”
Mobley had been on the court for a similar incident with a more tragic ending 33 years previously. Mobley was a captain on the Portland basketball team when it played Loyola Marymount in the 1990 West Coast Conference tournament. During that game, Mobley was being guarded by Hank Gathers when his opponent collapsed to the court, shaking and convulsing with a fatal cardiac event.
So Mobley recognized Iwuchukwu’s loss of motor function and rushed forward. In that moment, the rest of the USC staff realized it had an emergency on its hands and training kicked in.
Mobley helped move Iwuchukwu into a laying position on the Galen sideline. Enfield and graduate manager Jack Gentry rushed to retrieve the automated external defibrillator (AED) from the wall in the tunnel leading to the locker room. Director of basketball operations Michael Swets pressed the silver button on an emergency call box outside the locker room, connecting him to university emergency services. Meanwhile, strength coach Kurtis Shultz called 911 as a backup.
And director of scouting Kurt Karis ran to the training room to find athletic trainer Jon Yonamine, who had left the court during the water break.
All converged around Iwuchukwu, now lying on his back on the court. The rest of the USC players were sent to the locker room as Yonamine and trainers Erin Tillman and Lauren Crawford of the women’s basketball and volleyball teams began to administer CPR.
“To see our trainers perform CPR in a life-anddeath situation, they deserve just amazing accolades for what they did,” Enfield said. “They did an incredible job.”
USC declined to make Yonamine available for comment on this story.
As the rest of the studentathletes were directed to return to the locker room, Yonamine placed the pads from the AED onto Iwuchukwu’s chest. All the while, Mobley was trying to encourage the semi-conscious freshman.
“I was just hitting him, yelling at him, ‘Vince don’t leave me.’ I don’t know what I was saying,” Mobley said. “I was like, ‘Stay awake,’ shaking him, tapping him. You could tell that he was kind of hearing me but he was like trapped in a box.”
Somehow, the assistant coach’s encouragement got through to Iwuchukwu.
“I felt like I was in deep slumber, in a void. Things in that void, I can’t really describe but it was definitely something. When I was starting to get back into consciousness, I was starting to hear Mobley’s voice,” Iwuchukwu said. “And then I heard, ‘Vince, don’t die on me.’ And that’s when I was like, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ So I was like, ‘I gotta wake up now.’”
Yonamine charged the AED and deployed it. Iwuchukwu’s eyes opened. He was back.
“First thought was I had woken from a long dream, then I saw the court in front of me. Like, ‘Oh, I’m on the court,’” Iwuchukwu said. “So from there, I was like something really serious must have happened.”