Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1241493
12 // APRIL/MAY 2020 USAHOCKEYMAGAZINE.COM I t was a typical Tuesday night at the Allen Community Ice Rink in Allen, Texas. Travis Black and Will McStravick arrived early to officiate an adult league game between Flyers United and Minor Threat. Julie Phelan was thinking of playing soccer that eve- ning but opted to join her Flyers United squad instead. Minor Threat teammates Floyd Kinkaid and Steve Marshall showed up ready to play in front of substitute goalie, Bryan Robinson. It was just another Rec league game and none of them particularly needed to be there that night. But Marshall sure is glad they were. With six minutes left in the second peri- od, two players went shoulder-to-shoulder off the faceoff and seconds later the puck was iced. McStravick's whistle blew the play dead. Suddenly, one of those players, Marshall, was sprawled on the ice. As Black skated up to check on him, he realized that not only was he unresponsive but he wasn't breathing. He was having a cardiac episode. It would later be discovered that two of Marshall's arteries were 100 percent clogged and another had 70 percent blockage. P h e l a n — a f o r m e r p a r a m e d i c — a n d Kinkaid were the first people to reach him. Robinson, an emergency room nurse at a nearby hospital, quickly skated over and began to perform chest compressions. One moment Black was dropping the puck, the next he was calling 911 and get- ting a pair of scissors to cut through Marshall's jersey and pads. McStravick wasted no time skating end-to-end to retrieve the auto- matic external defibrillator device. "It's just a reaction," McStravick said. "I've been through this before so I always know where the defibrillator is. I just want to make sure everyone's OK in my games; I don't want anyone getting hurt." Coincidentally, this was the third medical emergency that he had experienced as an official, and the second for Black. Ironically, it was Robinson, the goalie delivering chest compressions to Marshall, that the officiating team had attended to almost three years earlier when he had an epileptic seizure on the bench. After several rounds of CPR, compressions and a shock administered by the AED device, the group was able to revive Marshall. First respond- ers would later say that he had been dead for two to three minutes. Robinson and Phelan's medical backgrounds were key factors in saving his life, but Black credits his training as a referee for preparing him to act. "Everybody remained calm during the whole situation. Nobody was really panicking, which was good, because with panic there's more room for error," Black said. "Even in a medical emergency—just like it would be in a highly-con- tested game —you have to do everything with a calm demeanor and not take it over the top. A lot of times, people respond better to that." Three days later, on Jan. 31, Marshall would undergo quintuple bypass surgery, and was at home recovering just four days later. He— among many others — considers himself very fortunate. Quick Acting Officials And Players Team Up To Save A Life On The Ice /// By Alyssa Hertel PHOTOS BY Alyssa Matejka SYMPTOMS OF SUDDEN CARDIAC ARREST 1. Fainting or seizure during or immediately after exercise 2. Unexplained shortness of breath 3. Dizziness 4. Extreme fatigue 5. Racing heart (feels like it is beating out of your chest). 6. Chest pain 7. No pulse 8. No breathing 9. Loss of consciousness THE PULSE OF THE GAME "The cardiologist and the surgeon both said I'm literally the luckiest guy they've ever met."