SAN ANTONIO — Many young athletes may think they're invincible and push it to their limits day in and day out. In today's Healthy SA, a local organization is making sure one very important organ is working as it should be.
Its the heart. A fascinating organ, but sometimes deadly conditions may exist in the heart, that often go unnoticed. That's why AugustHeart conducts free screenings for area teens. "AugustHeart came to my daughter's campus. She gets to the event and calls me and says, I changed my mind. I don't want to do this. Can I? Can I not do this? And I thought about it didn't seem super important, but I said, you know what? You're already there. Why don't you?" said mother Sharla Gray
What she didn't expect was a phone call from AugustHeart the next morning about a problem, but it was fixable. Gray , also said, "Letting us know that the screening had picked up something and that we needed to make an appointment with a pediatric cardiologist."
Alex Sego, a Program Director with AugustHeart added, "We can detect certain heart conditions through the EKG that you're not going to pick up. Or maybe there's no symptoms or no family history. We have the ability to find some of these heart conditions that are known to cause cardiac arrest."
"I think as a teen, often you think, oh, I don't want to do this thing. That's going to take a lot of time and it doesn't take a lot of time. It'll take roughly 10 to 20 minutes if you're waiting in a line. It's free," said Aiden Joseph Notzon who decided to volunteer for AugustHeart after hearing the story of Jackson Mohr from TMI Episcopal who died in 2021 from sudden cardiac arrest.
Notzon added, "In the seventh grade who passed away, and we really had no idea why. And I think it was that desire to understand what had happened that I heard about the organization of AugustHeart."
He says the most important thing you can do is spread the word. "Whoever you come into contact with. Tell them about this organization," Notzon said.
You can find more information about AugustHeart and their free screenings right here.