Sidney Dambrot
View a video of Sidney's Story
When Coach Keith Dambrot - Head Basketball Coach at the University of Akron - heard that his dad wasn’t breathing, it was the worst possible news. Sidney had suffered Sudden Cardiac Arrest and only had a 2% chance of survival.
Let Keith tell you the story in his own words…
“It’s amazing when you’re 52 years old like I am now and what goes through your mind and what you remember about your dad… I think about everything my mom and dad did for me throughout my life and I can’t tell you how many times I think about how my dad was with me.”
The entire team at Summa Cardiovascular Institute was there for the Dambrots, and now Sid is back to playing basketball at 80 years of age
“I couldn’t believe that the nurses, how patient they were with people and how they had a calming effect for people that were upset because their families were in such grave condition. It just, I hadn’t been around a lot of hospital situations so I really didn’t know what to expect and I was just really amazed by it all.”
“I think they probably do a better job of working under quick and changing conditions more than any group I’ve ever seen. And that’s kind of what I do for a living. I have to adjust to the game. And their game means a lot more than my game and they’re adjusting constantly. Well, we have to do this. You have the cardiac doctor talking to the intensive care doctor and the nurse. And then the neurologist involved and they’re mixing medicines. I’ve never seen a team operate like that and under such dire conditions as those. And everybody basically keeping their composure, which, you know, you’ve got people that need you to keep your composure and they just do an unbelievable job of that.”
“My dad was in the hospital for 28 days. The transitions that we made along the way from ER to CCU to step down and rehab, I thought it was all one place. I didn’t realize that these were actually separate units. I thought they coordinated very well together. “
“When my dad got sick it was a shock. I didn’t expect it in the least because in some ways I thought he was in better shape than I was. And even though he was older, I really didn’t think that this would happen to him. And so when it happened, I was totally surprised by it.”
“We’re just very, very lucky and I’m just so happy that we were in a hospital like Summa and had the care that we had. It’s truly a miracle.”