(From Nov. 2015)
By Trevor Hass
Sports Reporter
Rick Peterson gazed forward and saw someone in the distance
waving and calling for help. Right away, he knew something was wrong.
Peterson, Spectrum High School’s cross country coach and
athletic director, sprinted across the field at Kliever Park toward Nate
Hackbarth, the student who beckoned him.
Next to Hackbarth, sophomore Nevin Sagstetter lay on the
ground in an unresponsive state. Peterson thought Sagstetter was having a
seizure, and Sagstetter’s breathing was sporadic.
Assistant coach Amy Cornelius swooped in from the other
direction as Peterson tended to Sagstetter. He could tell Sagstetter’s
breathing was getting even worse, as the gaps between breaths grew longer.
Peterson, who spent 17 years as a paramedic, gave Sagstetter
mouth to mouth resuscitation and compressions, but Sagstetter’s breathing
stopped altogether minutes later. He was in cardiac arrest.
Cornelius called 911, Hackbarth returned with a First Aid
Kit and the medics arrived. Peterson had worked with that same emergency crew
years ago, and Cornelius said everything fell into place.
“It was amazing to watch, because they just kind of all fell
into this natural routine of what they used to do,” Peterson said. “It was like
I was witnessing miracle upon miracle with what was going on.”
Sagstetter was whizzed in an ambulance to Mercy Hospital in
Coon Rapids and later helicoptered to Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of
Minnesota in Minneapolis. He’s currently rehabbing in Gillette Children’s
Specialty Healthcare in St. Paul, and is scheduled to return to his Zimmerman
home for good two days before Thanksgiving, more than a month ahead of schedule.
For Sagstetter to be walking, talking and learning again is remarkable
to those close to him. The incident happened Tuesday, Sept. 22, and less than
seven weeks later Sagstetter is doing unfathomably well.
“I’m so thankful that he was where he was at when it
happened and that help was there,” Nevin’s mother, April Sagstetter, said. “He
could have just been out running on his own and been laying there, and who
knows what would have happened then.”
***
April Sagstetter was heading home when she got the phone
call no parent wants to receive. Amy Cornelius was on the other line, and
Cornelius tried to speak as calmly as she could to convey the facts to
Sagstetter.
Cornelius drew from the bravery and poise her mother showed
when she was a child and ambulances appeared at her house multiple times to
whisk her sister – who dealt with juvenile diabetes – to the hospital.
Cornelius, now a mother herself, knew she couldn’t panic, just like her mother
didn’t.
Telling Sagstetter her giggly, sarcastic, intelligent son
was in critical condition wasn’t easy, but Cornelius’ motherly instincts kicked
in immediately. From one mother to another, Cornelius delivered the news, and
Sagstetter – who was surprisingly just as calm – rushed to the fields right
away.
“She was in perfect mom mode,” Cornelius said of Sagstetter.
April Sagstetter called Nevin’s father, Tom, at 5:05 p.m.
telling him the news. When April and Tom Sagstetter arrived at Mercy Hospital,
unable to see their son, April remembers the nurse coming their way and informing
them that the chopper had arrived.
“I was thinking, ‘Oh my god, they’re not talking about
Nevin.”
But they were. At that point, Tom and April thought their
son might have suffered a seizure. They had no idea he had stopped breathing.
No heartbeat. No pulse. Nothing.
“We didn’t have a clue how bad it was until we got to Mercy
and they were loading him on the helicopter,” Tom Sagstetter said.
The horrific whirlwind of an evening continued, as the
chopper took off and rushed Sagstetter to the intensive care unit at Children’s
Hospital.
***
Nevin Sagstetter was sedated and cooled for 72 hours
straight. He was on a respirator and was out cold.
Day by day, progress was made. Small victories, such as
removing the Electroencephalogram measuring his brain activity, became huge
victories.
“He was literally covered with tubes and wires,” Tom
Sagstetter said, “but day by day things started disappearing.”
The doctors had Nevin scratch his head, scratch his leg,
squeeze his father’s hand, to distinguish between purposeful and non-purposeful
movements. They wanted to decipher whether his movements were reflexes, or if
he was consciously aware he was doing something. It was a brutal exercise, but
one that had to be done to determine exactly where he was at physically and
mentally.
Nevin Sagstetter is Spectrum’s second fastest runner. He
loves nothing more than to move around. In those first few days at Children’s,
he was deprived of that passion. Sitting in bed resting was a challenge, but
without a diagnoses and without an implant in his chest, moving wasn’t an
option.
Once he got a defibrillator in place to monitor his heart
rate and a pacemaker to ensure his heart beats in rhythm, Sagstetter gradually
began to do some of the things he’s accustomed to.
In fact, he made such steady progress that he was sent to
another location – Gillette in St. Paul – on Oct. 12.
***
When Nanette Aldahondo, pediatric rehabilitation medicine
specialist at Gillette, first met Sagstetter, the cross country runner was
cooped up in a wheelchair and largely unaware of his surroundings.
Since then, in less than three weeks, she’s seen him regain
the ability to walk to and from his therapy sessions. Though cognitive
redevelopment isn’t occurring quite as rapidly as physical improvement,
Aldahondo has seen Sagstetter make tremendous strides since she’s started
working with him.
“He’s out of the danger zone medically,” Aldahondo said. “We
still keep track of all those things and we monitor his heart, but we’ve really
shifted the focus to physical, occupational, speech therapy.”
Sagstetter’s day is long and tiring. He starts school in the
hospital between 8 and 9 a.m., takes classes until 3 to 4:30 p.m. and has a
lunch break in the middle. He does therapy in addition to school, so every-day
life can be exhausting.
“He’s pretty tired by the time 8 o’clock rolls around,” Tom
Sagstetter says, turning to Nevin and smiling. “Usually you’d make it to 10 or
11.”
“Not anymore,” Nevin replies, smiling back at him.
On Wednesday, Oct. 28, Sagstetter looked at a computer
screen with 100 dots on it. He moved the mouse and clicked on three different
colors of dots – 100 in total.
“You actually were clicking on them so fast that the little
computer couldn’t keep up,” Tom Sagstetter said to his son.
Nevin’s physical progress has been astounding, but his
mental ability is lagging behind. First he started to walk, and now he can do
so close to normally, however he believes he has started to run when in reality
he hadn’t done so as of late October. He’s briskly power walked, but he hasn’t
jogged quite yet.
When his father tells him he hasn’t run yet, Nevin grins and concedes. “OK, fine,” he says. He’s played Zoom Ball – a game involving a buoy and knocking things out of his parents’ hands – and now he’s starting to bike and swim.
It’s clear Sagstetter desperately wants to run, but
considering there was the possibility he wouldn’t ever walk again less than two
months prior, he’s ecstatic just to be alive and regaining his health.
“I didn’t know (if he would live),” Peterson said. “He had
been in cardiac arrest for a long time at the scene. I don’t think there were
any of us that knew at that time how this was going to turn out, not only if he
would live but how much function he would regain.”
***
It was an unimaginably nightmarish scene for Peterson.
Having to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation on one of his athletes and not
knowing whether someone whom he considers family would live.
But he did live, and since that day Peterson and Co. have
done everything they can do ensure the Sagstetters know Nevin is on their
minds. They made green wristbands with white writing that reads,” Running with
Nevin,” as well as white T-shirts that say, “#forNevin” in blue block lettering,
with black and white shading, on the front and feature the Spectrum mascot with
a cross country logo on the back.
Amy Cornelius recalls eating pancakes and donuts with Nevin
and his teammates after Saturday morning meets. She remembers going to Camp
Shamineau in Motley, Minnesota, and watching Nevin running, paintballing,
horseback riding and shooting rifles with his friends. The camp also had
something called the blob, that Nevin loved, where kids would sit on the far
end, and parents and coaches would jump off and launch them into the water. The
memories are limitless, which is why those close to Sagstetter have constantly
checked up on him to make sure he’s doing OK.
The Sagstetters have appreciated the overwhelming number of
requests they’ve received to visit Nevin. They’ve had to decline some so he can
stick to his tight schedule, but they’ve welcomed many others.
Tom Sagstetter set up a CaringBridge account to give family
and friends updates about his son’s progress. He said the last time he checked
the site, more than 3,200 people had viewed it. The Spectrum volleyball team
brought Sagstetter a gift basket, and coaches and runners from other teams have
reached out as well.
“They’ve been really supportive,” Nevin Sagstetter said.
“People visiting me from school, and all the people from the cross country
team, a lot of them have visited, which makes it really nice because it’s nice
to talk to them and see them. It makes my stay here a lot better to know that
they’re supporting me.”
While having visitors at the hospital is fun for Sagstetter,
returning home is even better. And on Sunday, Oct. 25, he had that opportunity
for the first time in more than a month.
They arrived home around 10 a.m. watched the Vikings beat
the Lions, 28-19, played with his yellow lab, Kenya, and his cats. The family
barbecued, Nevin saw his 13-year-old sister, Nicole, and he chatted with his
grandmother and grandfather about the new lake they moved to – a prime spot for
both hunting and fishing.
“I can’t wait,” Nevin Sagstetter said. “I’m more than ready
to go to the lake.”
***
Nevin Sagstetter reclines peacefully in a wooden and
cushioned chair in front of a flat-screen TV in a meeting room on the fourth
floor at Gillette at 11:06 a.m. on Oct. 28. He’s sporting his green Spectrum
cross country jacket, black sweatpants and an infectious smile.
His father, wearing a gray hooded Spectrum Sting sweatshirt,
sits to his right, and his mother, donning the #forNevin shirt, rests diagonally
from him.
They don’t know what the future holds, but they hope they
can put this terrifying chapter of their lives behind them. The climb toward
becoming the fully functioning person he was two months ago is a daunting one,
but Tom and April are confident their son will continue to shatter
expectations.
“I’m more of a spontaneous person, but it’s really hard to
plan for what’s going to happen six months from now because we don’t know what
you’re going to do that’s going to surprise us,” Tom Sagstetter says, looking
at Nevin. Then he pauses and laughs. “Don’t worry about that, just keep going.
Keep surprising us. It’s all good, man.”
There’s still no exact diagnosis. Doctors have run plenty of
tests, but they haven’t deduced the cause of the incident. The Sagstetters hope
they won’t have to change too much to the setup of their house once Nevin
returns Nov. 24.
Tom and April Sagstetter now know that awful things happen
to amazing kids, but they’re just relieved their son is still with them.
“It’s truly a miracle that he’s alive,” Tom Sagstetter said,
tears swelling in his eyes.
Then he turned to his 15-year-old son, who nearly died
before he did, and placed his left hand on Nevin’s left shoulder.
“You are our miracle boy,” he said. “You are amazing.”
