Tag: Dan Quigley

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Pennsylvania athletic trainer saves life

It was a typical Friday practice for assistant coach Mike Hackman and the girls’ varsity basketball team at Manheim Township High School.

But, about 3:20 p.m. on Nov. 20 the 71-year-old collapsed, falling unconscious on the gym floor. Hackman doesn’t have any memory of the tense minutes that followed. He doesn’t recall team members rushing to get medical attention. Nor does he remember the administrators, fellow coaches and medics who came to his aid.

All he’s certain of is that the stars aligned that day for him.

“Let’s face it, I was probably dead,” Hackman said Tuesday.

As Hackman tells it, his “heart went out of a rhythm.” His caretakers at Lancaster General Hospital later told him in detail the seriousness of what he experienced.

“They said if I had been at home, or anywhere where there wasn’t any help, then I’d have been gone,” he said.

Luckily, Dan Quigley, Manheim Township’s longtime athletic trainer, was on the spot.

“I just finished getting football players ready for the game. I was talking to our swim coach, and three or four girls from basketball came running down and said that ‘coach had collapsed,’” Quigley said. “I just ran to where he was.”

Quigley started emergency CPR at once and put an Automated External Defibrillator unit to use.

With nervous administrators and players nearby, Quigley forced breaths into the coach’s lungs, pumped his chest and used the defibrillator to shock the heart.

“It was just instinct,” Quigley said.

A second shock from the defibrillator got Hackman’s heart back in rhythm.

“I think that saved my life, there’s no question about,” Hackman said.

Soon after, the medics arrived and took him to the hospital. Coaches and administrators worked to calm the students.

Roger Czerwinski, Manheim Township athletic director, hurried to the scene after being alerted. He called the actions “heroic.”

“To watch Quigs take control of the situation and establish a sense of direction in a chaotic situation was impressive,” Czerwinski said.

On his road to recovery, Hackman has a larger appreciation for emergency responders, medical professionals and the presence of equipment like the defibrillator.

Of course, he’ll always hold a special spot in his heart for Quigley. The two have seen each other a few times, including at a practice session Hackman was able to attend Wednesday.

“I’ve given him a hug every time I’ve seen him,” Hackman said.

For his part, Quigley tries to downplay his role. “I was just happy to be able to be there for that,” he said.

In his nearly three decades as a trainer, Quigley said he’s used CPR only two other times. Both of those times the people died.

It’s only been in recent years where defibrillators have become more prominent and accessible, Quigley said.

The Manheim Township school has four AED units, which are about the size of a laptop computer, Czerwinski said.

Quigley added he’ll try to make sure area schools update their emergency plans, including making sure they have defibrillators installed.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
http://lancasteronline.com/news/local/quick-action-saves-coach-s-life/article_bd9c7464-99ba-11e5-a0fa-c7fc71ba4f6c.html

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ATs Featured in Article on female athlete triad syndrome

You’ve heard of people who take up exercise to lose weight and then, their appetites stoked, erase their losses by overeating.

But among some female athletes, coaches are working to head off a different problem: players jeopardizing their performance and their health by eating too little.

The problem is known as female athlete triad syndrome, and traditionally it has been diagnosed when an athlete has disordered eating, osteoporosis – weak and brittle bones – and absence of menstrual bleeding. But the symptoms coaches are more likely to see are weight loss, lack of energy, declining performance and increasing injuries.

“It basically comes from dedicated athletes who just want to take being the best to an extreme and lose focus on the balance between the nutrition that you need and the effort that you give,” said Dan Quigley, who has been an athletic trainer with Manheim Township School District for 27 years.

Jessica Hoenich, who has been an athletic trainer since 1999, agreed. She has worked with groups ranging from the USA field hockey team to U.S. Olympic women’s bobsledders to her current assignment at Cocalico High School.

“Sometimes health is the last thing they’re thinking about,” she said. Some may simply be caught up in trying to achieve their next athletic goal; others are following bad advice. And still others might be influenced by the widespread unrealistic body-image messaging in American popular culture.

Preventive measures

The trainers like to take a preventive approach by incorporating information about recommended calorie ranges into their beginning-of-year talks about the importance of good nutrition for athletic performance and health. Sometimes it’s an eye-opener for their players.

For instance, said Quigley, a cross-country runner may need up to 3,500 calories a day.

“Some of them will look at me like, ‘Oh my god, this is so many calories,'” Quigley said. “They don’t realize how much they’re burning off.”

That said, Hoenich noted, given the plethora of opinions on what constitutes a healthy diet these days, it’s easy to understand how athletes could get off-track.

“It’s very confusing even for the health professional to say what’s absolutely right other than saying you should have a balanced diet of everything that’s out there,” she said. “You want to make sure that you’re at least having a mixture of everything – protein, carbs, fats.”

Cammie Atwater, a clinical nutritionist at Lancaster YWCA, said individual needs vary depending on the person, sport and metabolism, and that calculators are available to help people estimate how many calories they should be consuming.

“I played sports when I was in high school, and none of the coaches ever really mentioned anything about nutrition,” Atwater said, noting that she thinks awareness has improved since then.

“It’s kind of a hot topic right now,” said Francesca Kirk, an athletic trainer who works for CPRS Physical Therapy. Her company offers continuing education for trainers, she said, and female athlete triad syndrome is a topic that they keep getting asked to address.

Rising awareness

The awareness is partially a function of more girls and women playing competitive sports, the trainers said: According to Women’s Sports Foundation, their numbers have increased by 990 percent at the high school level and 550 percent at the college level since 1972.

Another factor is in a new, broader definition of the syndrome that encourages earlier action.

“The longer it goes undiagnosed, the more severe symptoms become,” Atwater said. “It almost mimics what happens to older ladies when they go through menopause. It can actually throw off their hormonal balance.”

That said, the trainers said they think public understanding of the issue is improving.

“I don’t see it as a widespread problem,” Quigley said. “All the schools in Lancaster County and the surrounding areas have athletic trainers at their schools who can see this; people like myself can pick this up, literally, and intervene.

“I’ve talked to certain athletes who I thought were on the cusp of this and have been able to give them some information, education, direct them towards better nutrition, better choices, direct them to professional dietitians if needed.”

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
http://www.athleticbusiness.com/athlete-safety/female-athlete-triad-syndrome-erodes-performance-br.html