Holy Cross senior makes heartfelt return to basketball court less than year after cardiac arrest

The entire ride from Waterbury to the Ansonia High gym Wednesday night was a quiet one for Tasha Lott. She turned her radio off. She wasn't in the mood for music, so the only beat in the car was the rapid thumping of her heart brought on by anxiety. In an attempt to calm herself, she prayed.

"When I went into the gym, I prayed more until he came out onto the court with all the boys, and then I went and hugged him," she said of her son Tylon Lott and his Holy Cross basketball teammates. "He hugged me in front of all his friends, because he knows he has to help me deal with my anxiety about it."

It was 345 days earlier when Tasha had experienced the worst anxiety of her life, because she thought Tylon, 16 at the time, had died after playing a basketball game. She had received a call from his dad, Terence, telling her "Just come to Kennedy High School."

When she arrived there Jan. 7, she didn't see Tylon or his father in the gym. She asked where they were, but none of the parents lingering there said anything. They just pointed her in the direction of a classroom near the court.

"I walked into the classroom, and Ty was laying on the ground not moving, and everyone was working on him," she said. "I didn't know what had happened, but I thought he was already gone. He wasn't moving. I just saw EMTs working on him, but nobody was saying anything.

"I went out in the hall, and I dropped to the floor and I was crying and screaming. Then I saw him go out on the stretcher and knew he was alive. When we got to the hospital, I found out it was a cardiac arrest. I was just kind of in shock the whole time. It felt unreal like it just couldn't be happening."

Terence had been at the game, but had no idea anything was wrong initially. Tylon had played and seemed just fine. But after the game when the team went into a classroom to talk and gather all their belongings, Tylon was sitting in a chair, slumped downward and went into cardiac arrest.

The heroic quick thinking and actions of three spectators - nurses Megan Perrone and Lisa (Mariano) Wilson, as well as Terry Inabinett, a member of the Waterbury Fire Department - performed lifesaving CPR procedures, including shocking Lott's heart with an AED (automated external defibrillator).

"One of his friends came out and got me, and told me he had passed out," his dad said. "I was in shock when I got there. They were doing a great job working together as a team to give him CPR, but watching them do it on Ty was so tough, because it is your kid and you feel helpless."

Eleven months and 10 days later, the family was back in a gym Wednesday night for Lott's first game back as a member of the Holy Cross basketball team.

Now a 6-foot-2, 220-pound senior forward, Lott was excited. Unlike his parents, he doesn't remember anything from the night he almost died.

He certainly heard all about it and understood the fear of his loved ones, but he felt no anxiety as he prepared to play the Crusaders' season opener. To him, it was just a chance to play with his teammates again, this time as a starter and as a co-captain.

"I felt really good going back out there," he said. "I feel like I have a pretty good reason to play now. It doesn't just feel like an everyday thing. I just appreciate the little things more, like being able to play.

"The doctor told me that a lot of kids are like scared to play after a cardiac arrest. I kind of want to show people that you can still play and be fine."

In January, he wasn't fine. After arriving at Waterbury Hospital, as doctors and nurses were working on him, he kept on moving as if he was trying to wake up but unable to do so. So, he was put into a medically-induced coma to allow doctors to perform tests and to allow his body to rest and his heart to recover from the trauma.

"The way they described it to us was that after he played the game, his heart had trouble pumping blood," his mom said. "That is what made him drop. I still can't explain what actually caused it, but they said it was an irregular heart rhythm."

Ultimately, Lott went to Yale New Haven Hospital where they put him on a medication called metoprolol to control the heart arrhythmia and then implanted a defibrillator into his chest, which senses if his heart goes into arrhythmia distress and automatically shocks it back into a normal rhythm.

A week after getting his defibrillator, he was back in school, albeit with a few stipulations like no gym classes and no carrying around his books or a backpack. His friends helped him with the books.

His mom said he was so motivated by having a second chance at life that he was happier, more talkative and excited to get back to school.

"The first thing he wanted to do when he got out of the hospital was go to a game, but I still had a lot of anxiety," mom said. "I think he got out of the hospital on a Wednesday, and he went to their next game on like a Friday.

"After that, he sat on the bench for the whole rest of the season. He didn't play, but he was still loyal to his team."

It didn't take long for him to ask if he could play again. Less than a month out of the hospital when he went to his first checkup with his cardiologist, he asked if it would be possible.

"I was a nervous wreck at that point," Tasha Lott said. "I was kind of hoping he didn't ever want to play again. But I support him and want for him to be able to do whatever he wants.

"The doctor had to do a lot of reassuring with me. Yale did a study and told us that only 1% of the athletes who had a cardiac arrest had it happen a second time. So 99% went back to playing successfully if they wanted without it ever happening again."

That was all that Tylon needed to hear. He couldn't wait to get a chance to play again, even if he knew it wasn't going to happen last season.

"I wanted to play, but I knew that I couldn't, so it was pretty easy, because I knew what was best for me," he said in his soft-spoken manner.

His patience was rewarded in April when he was cleared by his cardiologist to play for his AAU team, the CT Focus. Mom needed a lot more reassuring. Dad, who is an AAU coach in the same organization for Tylon's younger brother Toren's team, needed to supervise the transition back to playing.

"I trained him myself for like a month," dad said. "I wanted to see him run, move and shoot without the pressure of a game. So, we worked out on our own or he practiced with my (AAU) team. We saw how he did against the kids two years younger than him, and then we slowly moved him toward his age group.

"At first, it was scary. If he ran and then bent over or got a cramp, you thought something might be wrong. So we made him take a lot of breaks to get used to it."

Lott's dad said Tylon gets annoyed now when his high school coaches are overly cautious, because he wants to play. He understands, however, why others might still be nervous.

Lott admitted that even though he had already played a little bit already in AAU games this summer, playing for his high school team again for the first time Wednesday was a much better feeling.

He was confident because he had already played games, and there was something about playing for Holy Cross that was special.

"I was happy being able to play with them again," he said, "because the last time I played with them, things obviously didn't go well."

Holy Cross coach Mike Wilson, who has also been Lott's guidance counselor since his freshman year, said he's thrilled for him because he's such a quiet, humble kid who has worked incredibly hard to get back to where he is.

Wilson said that as much as he was rooting for him, he had reservations about Lott's return to playing.

"I went from thinking, ‘I am not taking Ty back this year. No way. I will be too nervous to put him back on the court,' to watching him slowly working away, getting his game back, getting his legs underneath him. Now he is a (former 13-year NBA player) Anthony Mason-type of guy.

"He is that point power forward. He is undersized down low, he is slow outside, but he's got game. He can find a way to get to his spots. He is the kid you like to have on your team, because he makes people better."

Wilson's favorite part of Wednesday's 88-54 win over Ansonia came during a timeout when the Crusaders' two best players, Julian Jones and Ethan Clements, who each like to score a lot "got a little too passionate with each other.

"My voice of reason in the huddle was Tylon Lott," Wilson said. "He is very calm looking at both of them and says, ‘You both got 20. Be quiet.' His voice is really strong amongst the boys now.

"I tell the boys all the time, ‘I am going to yell at you, scream at you, fight with you, but as long as we realize we have each other's backs, perspective comes into play.' Tylon Lott has got the bigger-picture perspective. It's just so awesome."

Lott said the way his teammates all came to the hospital to see him and constantly checked in on him was heartwarming. He also loved how people in the community, both old friends and strangers, reached out to his parents to provide encouragement and make sure everyone was OK.

Those feelings are part of the new perspective with which he plays.

"It makes me feel good, and it gives me hope, too," Lott said. "A lot of things are going on in the world with all the negative stuff happening. Something like this gives me hope."

Lott scored four points in Wednesday's game to go with two rebounds and three assists. He got in foul trouble early, but took it all in stride, because he feels like he is in great shape and has positioned himself to have a very good season.

Mom said she is sure she will feel anxiety every time he plays, but she's happy for him because he is doing something he loves. Dad said he just feels grateful for the "beautiful response" from the entire community, and every time he sees the three "Super Heroes" who performed CPR that fateful night and saved Tylon's life, he thanks them.

"When you see your kid fall, and he gets back up, you start to feel for other families whose kids have fallen and didn't get back up," Terence Lott said. "You still worry, but you are more sensitive about people whose child was lost. We lost Ty, but he came back."

Wilson was ecstatic with how well everything played out Wednesday.

"I said after the game, ‘That is the biggest win of my career by far, having Tylon Lott come back onto the court and get a start as our captain,'" Wilson said. "Get out of here! You can't write a story like that."

When told that Lott said the only reason he wanted to play basketball again was to finish out his senior year by helping his team win a Naugatuck Valley League title, Wilson couldn't contain himself.

"Let's go man! What a team guy," Wilson said. "If he does that then maybe we can really write a storybook. We are going to the Disney Productions Studio with Ty if that happens. He'll make career money off that story."