Sudden Cardiac Arrest in youth is not rare!  This didn't just happen to Kyle, we lose 7000 youth every year in this country to Sudden Cardiac Arrest. These are just a few stories about youth from our community that we have lost, ones that have survived SCA or have become an advocate for youth heart health.  Thank you to them and their families for allowing us to share their stories.

Jake Ott

Jake Ott is a student at Jesuit High School where he is on the wrestling team.  His dream is to wrestle and be a MMA fighter one day.

Jake attended our heart screening in August of 2022, where he was diagnosed at the event by Echocardiogram with a bicuspid aortic valve.
This is a congenital heart condition that his family never knew about so now his family will be screened. Jake is seeing a pediatric cardiologist and will need a replacement valve at some point. Jake's mom is a Nurse  Practitioner  and had informed his doctors she thought she heard a heart murmur for years but he was never evaluated.

Jake's mom shared "My son would never have met the clinical guidelines to warrant an Echocardiogram! I can’t say enough about how much this screening has meant to us! Thank you to UC Davis, Project ADAM and Kyle J. Taylor Foundation for hosting this event and potentially saving my son’s life.”

Lucas Halteh

In 2017, at the age of 14, Lucas was diagnosed with right anomalous coronary artery. He was told that he needed to have open heart surgery if he ever wanted to play sports again. Lucas and his family decided to follow through with the surgery because he could never picture a life he would enjoy without the freedom to play sports and be active.

In November of 2017, he had surgery at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Stanford, California. Just a few weeks later, Lucas was back on the soccer field with his high school team at Saint Francis High School in Mountain View, Ca.

Two years later in his junior year in high school he made the varsity soccer team and has been able to live like a normal student-athlete. He began thinking about how he was lucky to have had his heart condition discovered and treated. Thousands of youth just like him around the United States and the world are not so lucky. Many student-athletes cannot afford or do not have access to proper and thorough cardiac screening. This inspired Lucas to start an advocacy group for SCA prevention, named Hearts Reborn. His hope is to bring awareness to and increase sudden cardiac death prevention in his community and abroad!

Brad Hartsell

Brad graduated from Leigh High school in 2012. Brad passed away at the age of 25 on December 19, 2019 from Sudden Cardiac Arrest due to Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) syndrome.

 Growing up Brad was an active athlete, he played pop warner football, track & field, & off-road motorcycle racing  He attended the University of Nevada Reno where he received his Bachelor’s degree in 2017 in Business Administration.

 Brad had recently proposed to his girlfriend, Natalie Stevens on Thanksgiving. He had just graduated from the Reno Police Academy,  was a sworn officer for 15 days & had only been on the job with the Reno Police Dept. for 4 days when he passed away.

  He was the perfect son & friend. He leaves behind his mother, father, half-sister, half-brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, fiancé & many friends who all love & miss him dearly.

​Alyssa Sialaris

Alyssa Sialaris graduated from Leigh High School in 2009. She was a loving daughter, sister, niece, granddaughter, cousin, girlfriend, friend, player, teammate, coach and angel who passed away at the age of twenty-one on Wednesday, April 3, 2013 from sudden cardiac arrest due to probable cardiac arrhythmia.

 Alyssa had been a senior at Whittier College majoring in Kinesiology and Nutrition Science. She was set to graduate in May 0f 2013. Alyssa was a standout athlete at Whittier for both the volleyball and track and field teams, holding multiple school records in both sports. She was an inspiration to so many and had a hilarious sense of humor. Alyssa is remembered as being full of life, passion and enthusiasm about everything she did. She was not only an athletic standout, but was a person who brought in a surge of life, energy, and character in every room she walked in to. Alyssa is sorely missed by her friends and family every day.

Tristan Nguyen

Tristan Nguyen was a Junior at Leland High School in San Jose. On March 16, 2015 Tristan was doing a warm-up jog with other members of the Leland track and field team when he collapsed. The coach immediately started to perform CPR on him while the school was calling 911 but he died later at the hospital.

  Tristan was an honors student who played both football and track. Tristan was a lineman on the varsity football team and was a thrower on the track team. He has been described by friends as kind, generous, funny, and inspiring.

​Ryan Kessler

Ryan graduated from Menlo-Atherton High School.  During his senior year, he was looking at the moon with his father when he suddenly collapsed.  His older brother performed CPR while waiting for the EMS to arrive.  They shocked him several times before taking him to the hospital where he received hypothermia treatment & was put in a medically induced coma for several days.  Ryan eventually woke up and had an ICD implanted.  The underlying cause of his cardiac arrest is unknown and genetic testing has not identified the cause.

  Ryan recently graduated from Indiana University and has made it his new mission to give back to Sudden Cardiac Arrest prevention causes.

Lauren Coke

Lauren Coke graduated from Branham High School in 2018.  She was a loving daughter, sister, niece, granddaughter, cousin, friend & teammate.  She passed away on October 26, 2019 in Eugene, Oregon from sudden cardiac arrest due to viral myocarditis.
 
Lauren was a sophomore at the University of Oregon majoring in Business & Marketing.  She was also a member of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center.  Lauren was an outstanding athlete her whole life.  From a young age she played soccer & basketball.  She played both sports in high school & also track & field.  She played  goalkeeper with her club soccer team for 7 years where the team won numerous regional & national championships. She was a good student & fulfilled her lifelong dream of attending UofO.  She is sorely missed by her family & friends whom she was fiercely loyal to & loved very much.  She is an angel who will be forever loved.

Max Broberg

Max is a Leigh High School class of 2019 graduate.  In December 2019 Max had a doctor’s appointment on another issue but during that appointment he shared a concern that his chest felt “swollen from the inside out”. Erring on the side of caution, his doctor sent him straight to a Pediatric Cardiologist at Stanford.

 At Stanford they discovered a decent sized Congenital Heart Defect (Atrial Septal Defect) in Max that was causing blood to squirt from his left atrial to his right atrial. The swelling he had been feeling from “the inside out” is the blood leaking through the hole in his septum & pooling on the right side of his heart.

 In January 2020 Max underwent surgery to plug the hole and continues to be monitored by doctors but is doing great!
Max has played sports his whole life,  had annual physicals and nothing was ever detected until Max spoke up about his symptoms and was his own heart health advocate.