WALDWICK, N.J. — Sean Fisher collapsed and died on the Waldwick High School football field in 2008 of an undetected heart condition. He was 13.
The anguish Sean's death caused his family is something Fred Hirsch can relate to — the Lodi resident lost his son to a similar heart condition in 2004. Hirsch reacted to his loss by forming the Gregory M. Hirsch Foundation in his son's name, with a mission of preventing sudden cardiac death in young people.
So after hearing about Sean, Hirsch reached out to the Fisher family.
"Fred came to my son's wake and introduced himself," recalled Sheila Fisher, Sean's mother and the head of a memorial foundation subsequently formed by the Fishers. "From early on we decided to work together."
The result of that collaboration was a program to screen kids at Waldwick High for the kind of heart problems that killed their sons.
Monday a team of nurses from the Pediatric Center for Heart Disease at Hackensack University Medical Center spent the day screening students from the freshman class for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) — the disease that killed both Sean Fisher and Gregory Hirsch — as well as a number of other heart conditions. They measured blood pressures and administered electrocardiograms and echocardiograms.
HCM causes a thickening of the heart muscle, making it harder for the heart to pump blood through the body. In some cases it can cause the heart to stop suddenly. There's no cure, but the condition can be treated and managed medically.
The screenings were paid for by the Hirsch Foundation, the Sean Fisher Memorial Foundation and the Gift of Life Foundation in Paramus. Cardiac Scan Imaging Services on Long Island provided the scanners at reduced cost.
As a result, 90 of the school's 125 freshmen signed up for the tests, which will continue through Thursday. That's up from the 62 who were checked out last year, the first time that the Hirsch and Fisher foundations underwrote heart scans at Waldwick.
"Last year they flagged three kids, one with a serious condition," Hirsch said. Prior to the screenings, their families and doctors had no idea the teenagers had underlying heart issues, he added. "You could say it saved their lives."
The screenings began last year because that would have been Sean Fisher's freshman year, his mother noted. "Also, that's the year they should be screened," she added. "That's the age group where these conditions start appearing."
Getting an extra 30 kids to participate in this year's screenings shows that "the kids and parents are very appreciative," said Waldwick High Principal Kevin Carroll. "This is something that's not available from their regular doctors. And they're not just testing the athletes."
But that's not enough of an increase to satisfy Hirsch, a former president of the Fair Lawn Chamber of Commerce and long-time member of the borough's planning board.
"Our goal is to make sure that every freshman class in Bergen County gets screened," he said. Hirsch added that his foundation has commitments from four other school districts to participate in the program: Fair Lawn, Paramus, Leonia and River Edge.
"The logistics and the dates have not been set up for those yet," he said.
Because both foundations' funds are limited, Hirsch added, he's looking for other charities or community groups interested in helping to underwrite all or some of the cost of testing at additional schools. The Hirsch Foundation raises about $175,000 annually, which it spends both on providing screenings and medical care and on funding research. The Fisher Foundation takes in considerably less than that.
Without any subsidies, the tests cost $265 apiece, said Hirsch, who now resides in Lodi. "In some communities, $265 isn't such a big deal for parents," he noted. "We're trying to raise extra money so we can go into districts that are not so wealthy. We'd like to get into places like Garfield."
Most people associate sudden cardiac death among young people with athletes. Indeed, the most recent case to grab national attention was that of Wes Leonard, a 16-year-old basketball player in Fennville, Mich., who collapsed on the court March 3 after hitting a game-winning shot and died of cardiac arrest brought on by dilated cardiomyopathy, or an enlarged heart.
But HCM and similar life-threatening heart conditions strike athletes and non-athletes alike, noted Dr. Robert Tozzi, founder of the Pediatric Center for Heart Disease and chief of pediatric cardiology at Hackensack University Medical Center. Tozzi cited examples of adolescents who collapsed and died while simply talking to friends in a schoolyard. "HCM can cause death at any time."
Tozzi, who also serves as the Hirsch Foundation's medical director, said that while the screenings focus on HCM, they also check for a number of other heart conditions that are usually not detected in regular physical exams or in those given to youngsters participating in interscholastic sports.
"The purpose of the screening is to look for HCM, which is the No. 1 cause of kids dying suddenly," Tozzi said. "But we're also looking for any of those diseases or syndromes with the ability to cause sudden death or cardiac arrest."
What makes these conditions so insidious is that they often cause no symptoms until the victim suddenly collapses. And they're considerably more prevalent than most people realize, Tozzi said.
About one in 500 people carry the gene for HCM. "You could have the gene and not the disease," he noted. "It's a sneaky disease."
Information from: The Record, http://www.northjersey.com