Berger improving after collapse during practice

Ambulance personnel shortly arrived on the scene and Berger was flown to Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, where he was listed in critical condition.

Lauren Berger, Danny Berger’s sister, posted on her Facebook account Tuesday that her brother is doing better.

“Things are looking up for Danny as of now,” she wrote. “He’s at the SLC hospital now. Everyone keep him in your prayers.”

John Berger, Danny Berger’s older brother was with him in the Murray hospital.

“Danny collapsed during practice, and we are still unsure of the reason for it,” John Berger said. “As of right now, things are looking good. He’s waking up and responding the way the doctors want him to.”

Lyons said he and the other doctors are unaware of any preexisting heart conditions that may have triggered the cardiac arrest.

“He’s a well-conditioned athlete, but this reminds all of us that there are certain things that are unpredictable,” Lyons said.

Kathleen Steadman, a CPR and AED instructor at USU said defibrillators have more often than not saved the life of someone who has stopped breathing.

“The truth about AEDs is they are a huge difference between people coming back and not,” she said.

Constant electrical activity keeps a regular pulse in a human heart. Sometimes due to a birth defect in the heart or when the lungs stop breathing, a heart will experience ventricular tachycardia, a rapid heartbeat, or ventricular fibrillation, a very irregular heartbeat. Both conditions will cause the heart to stop. And either way, Steadman said, a short electrical shock into the heart from an AED can reset the heart and get it beating back at a normal rhythm.

The AED will monitor heart frequencies and levels through special sensors, and Steadman said the AED is automated to never send an electric shock if it’s not needed. In those cases CPR is performed and the AED will reanalyze the heart every two minutes.

“It’s not something you just point and shoot. It will analyze the heart rhythm taking place,” she said.

Dr. Danny Spencer of the Logan Regional Hospital did not treat Berger but said it is a common practice to put patients into a medically-induced coma after they have had experienced cardiac arrest to speed the recovery process.

Spencer said the practice is known as a hypothermia coma, and the patient is kept sedated up to 24 hours after revival.

“It’s kind of like putting ice on a sprained ankle to keep the swelling down,” said Spencer, an emergency room physician. “So you cool their body down to a temperature that is cooler than normal just to try to keep the brain swelling to a minimum.”

Spencer said when a patient is brought out of the medically-induced coma, doctors will test simple motor skills by having the patient raise different fingers, move toes or open their eyes, among other functions.

“They’ll start asking the person ‘Can you do this or can you do that,'” Spencer said, “The faster they can respond and the more complex things they can do, the better.”

The process can be very gradual, Spencer added.

“At first you may be really slow to hold up two fingers or to squeeze someone’s hands,” he said. “But they’re not just going to wake up all of the sudden and start talking.”

Utah State Athletic Director Scott Barnes said Berger is in stable, but critical condition.

“He’s responding well to his doctors, his family and even his coach,” Barnes said.

Lyons said Berger is stable, awake and the tube assisting his breathing has been removed.

“He recognizes his family, the doctors, the instructions that they are giving him,” Lyons said. “This is definitely a great sign of progress for him.”

Berger will continue tests to determine what caused the condition, and Lyons said he is doing much better, even though his condition has not officially been upgraded.

Due to the unsettling turn of events, officials from both Utah State and Brigham Young University have postponed Wednesday’s scheduled matchup.