Cardiac arrest sent an athlete to the hospital last April. He’s back on the field this football season.
By Pepper Purpura
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CRESTON, Iowa (KCCI) — Five months after collapsing at a spring track meet, 15-year-old Nate Bentley is back under the Friday night lights — this time with a personalized plan and a heart monitor helping make it possible.
In April, the then-freshman football player, wrestler, and runner had just handed off the baton to his teammate at the Glenwood track meet when he suddenly went into cardiac arrest.
Bentley, a three-sport athlete whose mother says “football was his first love,” went into cardiac arrest in April after handing off the baton in the sprint medley at Glenwood. A coach quickly retrieved the school’s automated external defibrillator (AED) and delivered a shock to the teenager to help revive him before he was rushed to Children’s Nebraska in Omaha.
“When I got there, I realized it was a lot worse than I had imagined,” Bentley’s mother, Erin Wallace, said.
Doctors later diagnosed Bentley with catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia, or CPVT — a rare, genetic heart rhythm disorder.
“It’s relatively uncommon and can be hard to diagnose because the heart is structurally normal,” said Dr. Ben Hale, a pediatric electrophysiologist at the University of Iowa. “Often the first symptom of CPVT can be cardiac arrest.”
People with CPVT are typically told to avoid strenuous exercise and especially contact sports, such as football. But getting back to his “first love” was a huge priority for Bentley because being an athlete was a part of his identity.
Hale designed a cautious, step-by-step return-to-play plan, starting with monitored exercise testing.
“We can recreate some of the triggers of CPVT-related arrhythmias in a very controlled and safe environment,” he said.
But the emotion and adrenaline of a live sporting event like football can have an additional impact on the heart that Hale said he couldn’t recreate at the hospital.
To better gauge how practicing sports affected Bentley’s heart, Hale placed a special heart monitor in his chest, called a loop recorder, to track Bentley’s heart rhythm during real drills and sporting events, along with medication and strict safety protocols.
Through the summer, Bentley trained and kept his conditioning up, even joining cross-country when he wasn’t yet cleared for full-contact pads. By early September, Hale allowed a limited return to football practice.
After a week of normal readings at practice, Bentley returned to Glenwood Stadium on Sept. 13. This time, he walked off the field after the final whistle.
To keep him safe, Hale requires an AED on hand and a second person with Bentley anytime he exercises or competes. Data from the loop recorder will contribute to research on CPVT—including rare, real-world measurements captured during a contact sport.
Hale credits Bentley’s survival and recovery to the immediate use of CPR and the AED at the track meet — a reminder, he said, that preparation saves lives.
Wallace is accepting donations to offset the cost of medical expenses and trips to Iowa City. Those contributions can be made to @erin-wallace-103 on Venmo.
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