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On the morning of Feb. 1, Alivia Henkel strode into her high school as if it were any other day. But standing at a friend's locker, she began to feel dizzy. Then she passed out.

"From what I've been told, my friend caught me before I hit the ground," Henkel says. "Then our school resources officer started CPR, and when paramedics arrived, they used a defibrillator on me."

Paramedics rushed the 18-year-old track, volleyball and basketball star to nearby Rochelle Community Hospital, 80 miles west of Chicago. Henkel's mother, Geri Hayden, was 40 minutes away when she got the call. When Hayden arrived at the hospital, a doctor came to meet her.

"I asked, 'Is she alive?'" Hayden says. "And the doctor said, 'We're doing everything we can.'"

Henkel had suffered a cardiac arrest. She was struggling, and doctors knew that transporting her to Loyola University Medical Center in the Chicago suburb of Maywood would give her a better chance. Loyola, a member of Trinity Health, offers quaternary care, an advanced level of specialized medical attention.

Loyola physicians including Dr. Julie Fitzgerald, a pediatric critical care specialist, were ready and waiting when the ambulance transporting Henkel screamed into the bay. It was a "truly life-or-death" situation, according to Fitzgerald.

"I've been an intensive care physician for 25 years," Fitzgerald says. "And I've probably seen cardiac arrest in a person this young and healthy less than five times."

'I knew it was bad'
Doctors put Henkel on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, orECMO, device, an external machine that performs heart and lung function when a patient's own organs can't.

For two days, Hayden and the rest of Henkel's family—including her father, stepfather and two brothers—held their breath. Henkel's first awareness was waking up intubated, unable to talk. As she came to, she saw her family's deep worry.

"People were crying," Henkel says. "I didn't really know what was going on, but I knew it was bad."

Without the ability to talk, Henkel immediately began communicating in American Sign Language, which she learned as a young child. Her loved ones breathed a deep sigh of relief, knowing she retained full cognitive function. Soon she transitioned to pen and paper. Their hopes soared when she was able to come off the ventilator.

Hayden was touched by the way doctors knelt at her daughter's bedside to talk to her at eye level. Throughout the hospital stay, she appreciated how the Loyola team encircled Henkel with love, even praying for her recovery. She will never forget the gentle way Fitzgerald sat down with her daughter's friends to explain Henkel's medical situation.

"Dr. Fitzgerald told them, 'OK, girls, what questions do you have?'" Hayden says. "For her to give her time to those teenagers who were scared for their friend was really beautiful."

Fitzgerald says: "I'm an ICU doctor, but I'm also a mom. So I'm happy to take that extra bit of time to talk things through, to make sure everybody understands what's going on."

On the night Henkel would have played in her school's senior night basketball game, a nurse wanted to be sure she could at least watch it on television. Perched on a stepladder to reach an Apple streaming device, the nurse fiddled with the device until she found the game, enabling Henkel to see her Rochelle Township High School teammates and many of their parents displaying her number, 23.

"How many nurses would do that?" Hayden says. "It was really sweet."

Running and reconnecting
The exact cause of Henkel's cardiac arrest is unknown. But suspecting it might have been prompted by an abnormal heart rhythm, doctors surgically implanted a defibrillator to detect any future recurrence and shock her heart back into rhythm. Given a choice of devices, Henkel picked a newer side-implanted model that's easier to replace.

After Henkel went home from the hospital, she quickly went from going on walks to jogging. In May, she tried running again, and soon began training for an event that would help her give back to the hospital that saved her life. The annual Loyola Medicine 5K Supporting Pediatric Care & Research would take place June 15, almost exactly four months after Henkel went home.

Henkel looked forward to returning to competitive running as well as reconnecting with Loyola.

"I was excited that I would be able to see some of my doctors again," Henkel says. "I am so grateful for what they did for me."

Fitzgerald is overjoyed with Henkel's progress.

"I would say it's miraculous, given what she went through, to, within just a couple of months, be strong enough to participate in a 5K," Fitzgerald says.

When Fitzgerald and Henkel saw each other before the race began, they shared a big hug.

Henkel's family and doctors cheered her on as she completed the race without difficulty. Even though she didn't match her personal 5K best, she was pleased to be back in the game.

"My favorite quote is from Dr. Martin Luther King: 'If you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, you have to keep moving,'" Henkel says.

The 5K raised more than $70,000 for Loyola. Among the beneficiaries of this year's funds are an interdisciplinary clinical trial exploring new treatments for children facing cancer. Past runs have funded Loyola's neonatal and pediatric intensive care units.

"It feels great to support anyone who's been through anything like I have," Henkel says.

In August, Henkel began her freshman year at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, where she runs track. But her bigger focus is on a new career path. Thanks to the care she received at Loyola, Henkel decided to study premed.

"I saw that the doctors, nurses and everyone at Loyola really enjoyed their jobs," Henkel says. "And that they were really happy helping their patients."