Cardiac arrest can happen at any age. >>And a York County family knows that all too well,
Josh and Liam Miller share their daughter, Bristol's story.
>>Six year old Bristol Miller is one happy little girl. It's hard to believe what she went through when
she was 14 months old. >>It was March 1st when the event happened. >>Bristol was at
the babysitter's. >>She was fine all morning and that afternoon she went down for a nap
and the babysitter heard her cry. So she went in to pick her up out of the crib and laid her
down on the floor to go get a bottle and came back and she found her, she was unresponsive
on the floor. >>The babysitter took two important steps. She gave Bristol CPR and called 911. A call
that her dad found out about immediately. He's a paramedic. They came in as a 14 month old cardiac
arrest at that address. I knew the address. So and she was the only kid back there that day.
That was that age. So I knew it had to be her. >>My father in law, my brother in law and
my husband were some of the first responders on the scene. >>We started, we were doing CPR
um and when we got her on our cardiac monitor, she had a shock herbal rhythm. So we defib related
her. Initially, Bristol went to a local hospital, the same hospital where her mother, Leah works.
She's a nurse practitioner in cardiology. >>You understand everything as a medical,
medical provider. And as um you got to kind of try to look at it that way. But then also as,
as a, as a parent, it definitely makes you look at a little bit different. >>After Bristol was stable,
she was airlifted to Penn State Health Children's Hospital. >>In the beginning, there,
there was a very, there's a lot of unknowns which is why that happened. What caused it
that could have happened again. >>Over the next couple of days, she had, you know,
testing of her heart. She had had an e to look at her brain activity to see about seizures
and all of that really was unremarkable. They couldn't really find her because they couldn't
find a reason as to why this happened. And then ultimately, they decided to put
a defibrillator in. She came out of surgery, woke up was doing good. >>They were talking about
discharging us to go home and then she had a seizure. We went back to the drawing board.
>>There were a few complications that ended up pushing Bristol's stay in the hospital to five
weeks. >>Neither Josh nor I left the hospital room at all overnight or for an extended period of
time in those five weeks. >>Bristol's next step was Penn State Health Rehabilitation and then she was
ready to go home. >>It was mid April. She came home and we were greeted at home by a bunch of friends
and family and then we kind of got to ease our way back into daily life. >>And that was five years ago.
Look at Bristol now. >>She likes anything, Barbie's anything pink unicorns, sparkly, whatever. And so
really, it is just to kind of keep things as normal for her as possible. >>She's a normal
six year old now and she runs with the best of them. She plays at school gym. She's a good kid.
>>Well, joining me now is Dr, Jason Imundo, Director of Cardiac Electrophysiology at Penn State Health
Children's Hospital. Bristol's story is amazing. How did you get involved in the case? >>Thanks for
having me, Amy. It is an amazing story. So I'm a cardiologist, but I'm in charge of heart rhythm
abnormalities. So anytime there's a patient who comes into our children's hospital with
a suspected heart rhythm abnormality, the team will contact me for advice and that's how I got
involved in Bristol's case. >>How is Bristol doing today when her parents said, hey, she's happy.
She's, she's a good kid, but is she recovered? >>Oh, she's doing wonderful. She's an active six
year old. She's intelligent. She has got an amazing personality. She's been through so much
and to talk to her, to see her, you would have no idea that anything has ever happened to her heart.
>>Goodness, have a heart attack, a young child. You really don't think about that happening
even as new parents. Like that's not what you're worried about. Right. So, how common is this?
Are there symptoms that parents can look for? >>You know, it's every parent's worst nightmare.
Um Fortunately, this is very rare, does not happen often. It's different than what happens
to an older person when they have a heart attack for a young person. That's usually there's a heart
rhythm abnormality. Um things that people could watch out for would be if a child was to pass out,
especially during activity. Um if they were to complain of heart racing or even shortness of
breath, those are things that should be brought up to their primary care doctor, pediatrician.
And then if they had concerns, they would refer the family to a pediatric cardiologist. >>So Bristol
actually suffered cardiac arrest. What are some other conditions that you see Children for? >>Yeah.
So, at Penn State Health, we are very lucky. We have a world renowned group of invasive and non
invasive pediatric cardiologists and congenital heart surgeons. We take care of all types of
cardiac disorders before birth during fetal development. Um all congenital heart disease
after birth and then preventative cardiology. And for me, I do a lot of heart rhythm work.
>>We know as adults that it's important to take care of our hearts and we know to keep our Children
healthy through their regular appointments. What can we start doing when they're quite young to
encourage heart health and to keep them heart healthy? It's a great question. Um I think as
adults, we know that we try to stay away from things like saturated fats, sugars. Um we,
we try to do daily physical activity, but the thing we could do to teach our kids would be to
lead by example, show them that everything we were telling them that we're practicing. >>That's good.
So you should eat the fruits, you should eat the vegetables of your Children. See you doing
it. That's what will be natural. Very good. Thank you so much doctor. Good to have you with us today
for more information or to make an appointment with the Children's Heart Group at Penn State
Health Children's Hospital, call 866-244-2273 or visit, PennStateHealth.org/Children.