2 Weeks After Cardiac Arrest, Rush City Teen Back At School

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A teenager is back at school two weeks after he went into cardiac arrest during gym.

Last month, Jared Loomis collapsed during Phys. Ed. at Rush City High School. He went into cardiac arrest and he wasn't breathing.

"Off-the-charts lucky," Jared's dad Ron said. "I can't explain it. It's almost like it didn't happen."

And looking at Jared, it really is hard to believe that on Oct. 20, his life nearly ended.

"You just don't know," Jared's mom Shelly said. "He's never had any issues, ever."

On that day, Shelly Loomis got the call at work that her 14-year-old son had collapsed and was unresponsive.

"I had too much time to think about it on the way to school," she said.

But while Jared's situation was life-threatening, in some ways he was extremely lucky. School workers immediately began CPR and Sgt. Jason Foster, who was in the neighborhood, got to the school in less than a minute.

"You could tell he was completely gone," Sgt. Foster said.

Sgt. Foster used his very own AED on Jared while first responders performed CPR in between the shocks.

"He got compressions right away. Breaths right away. That's huge. A minute later and things might be different," said Ron.

Forty minutes after Jared collapsed, a Life Link helicopter had flown him from Rush City to Children's Hospital in Minneapolis, where he recovered.

"I don't remember that day at all. I just remember going to bed the night before," Jared said.

Just two weeks later, with a defibrillator in his chest, Jared returned to school.

"Really, the take away is the system worked," Operations Supervisor for Lakes Region EMS Danny Parker said. "From CPR, to AED, to airlift, the system worked the way it was supposed to."

"It's amazing the way it happened," Jared said. "Some people don't come back from this, but I did. I fought through it. It's a miracle I'm here."

Wednesday night was the first time some of the emergency responders who helped Jared got to see him.

Jared and his family want to thank everyone involved in his rescue and recovery. The family actually took a CPR class last weekend together.