Devoted dad suffers heart attack while playing football with his two children

David Chirinos sprang into action, though, when he saw his dad, Rene, suddenly struggle to breathe, and experience other typical heart attack symptoms in St. Petersburg, Florida

A teenage son helped save his dad’s life when he suddenly had a heart attack while playing football in a park with his children.

When Rene Chirinos suddenly struggled to breathe and clutched his chest during the kickabout, he feared for his life. However, his 17-year-old son David reconised the symptoms as those of a heart attack and called for an ambulance.

David had been on a college trip to a hospital just weeks prior and remembered learning about heart attacks and chest compressions, an experience he credits for helping save his father. Paramedics rushed to the scene in St. Petersburg, Florida, and took the dad to hospital, where he underwent surgery to have a stent placed in his heart.

He is now on the mend and doctors at HCA Florida Northside Hospital in St. Petersburg have praised the brave teenager for springing into action when he did.

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Staff at the hospital awarded David with a military coin on Monday at a special ceremony. They want to raise awareness of the symptoms of heart attacks, which also include feeling lightheaded or dizzy, sweating and shortness of breath. Rene, an otherwise healthy man, experienced these and severe chest pain after playing football with David and his other son Elias in January.

Speaking at the ceremony, a modest David said: “We had learned about heart attacks and chest compressions. I remember, they had taken us through a class and they showed us how to correctly do chest compressions.”

Recalling his ordeal, Rene said: “I lost the ability to feel on [the] left side of my hand… I thought, ‘is this going to be my last breath, God?’… Thank the Lord Jesus that we are still here. I mean I’m so glad that I was in good hands.” On Monday, Rene met the first responders who attended the call when he fell ill — and he thanked them warmly.

Lindsay Douthitt, stroke coordinator at Northside Hospital, lauded her colleagues but stressed the importance of David’s role too. She told ABC affiliate WFTS the military coin is an honour.

“A challenge coin is a military custom and it’s essentially a tangible job well done, a token of appreciation. We designed it for our community partners, our EMS (emergency medical services), our fire, but also we want to extend that to our community members when we have something such [as] in David’s case,” Lindsay continued.

In the US, someone has a heart attack every 40 seconds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It says about one in five heart attacks is silent—the damage is done, but the person is not aware of it.