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6th-grade students in Texas to undergo heart tests


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Just wanted to see what others think? This was in the Beaumont Enterprise today!!

Davin Birdwell was 18 years old when he collapsed at a friend's house following a morning basketball practice.

The Vidor High School athlete was taken to Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital, where he died shortly after his arrival. MORE ON THE NET

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Seven years later, Matthew Robinson, also 18, collapsed in the batter's box at a private league baseball game. The Nederland High School senior was pronounced dead that evening at Port Arthur's Medical Center of Southeast Texas.

Two young men, seemingly in great health with their lives snuffed out all too quickly. It is this kind of ending that the Texas Legislature is working to prevent through a Senate bill signed by Gov. Rick Perry in June 2007.

A portion of that bill included a cardiovascular screening program for Texas sixth-graders, set to begin later this month in schools yet to be announced.

"We will set it up in certain schools to create a database to see how feasible the study is for statewide (use)," said Texas Education Agency spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson.

The program will offer a family history questionnaire, an electrocardiogram (EKG), and an echocardiogram at selected schools across the state. Parents will have to agree to have their students tested.

"The purpose of it is to screen students in grade six to determine if they have any type of congenital heart defects," Culbertson said.

The sixth-grade year is key because by age 12 any defect likely will have shown up. Plus, students usually are more physically active at that time, Culbertson said.

The start of this program comes on the heels of two recent cardiac-related deaths in Houston-area schools. Kailynn Boclair, a student at Crosby Middle School in Hitchcock, died Monday after collapsing at a basketball game, according to a story in The Houston Chronicle.

Just five days before that, on Jan. 9, Jocelyn Arias collapsed and died at Sugar Land Middle School. She also was playing basketball, according to The Chronicle.

Both girls had a defect that caused their left coronary artery to compress during exercise, cutting off blood flow to the heart, the story stated.

The deaths of Birdwell and Robinson, the Southeast Texas athletes, were attributed to heart attacks brought on by an irregular heartbeat. Advertisement

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With the cardiovascular screening program, heart conditions could be caught before they become more serious.

An EKG tests the electrical activity of the heartbeat and an echocardiogram shows the shape and size of various parts of the heart, according to The Chronicle.

Unfortunately, these tests do not reveal every possible heart defect and would not have helped the two Houston-area students, according to The Chronicle.

The TEA has not decided how many students will be screened, Culbertson said.

But, they do know they will look at an "ethnically diverse" group of students.

That was a requirement of the bill, according to the Texas Legislature Web site.

Updated 01/17/2008 09:08:38 AM CST

©The Beaumont Enterprise 2008

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