Football player, 13, had 'a huge hole' in his heart

November 12, 2011
By KEVIN TRUDGEON

The 13-year-old teases his younger siblings, gives his parents a hard time and is a little shy around people he doesn't know. He loves all things sports, will look for any excuse to get out of schoolwork and thinks a trip to Sonic is a cause for celebration. But there is something different about Logan, something that can't be seen when someone first looks at him. In fact, it's something that went unnoticed for the first 13 years of his life.

Unbeknown to his family and friends, and even to Logan himself, was a hole in his heart roughly the size of a half-dollar. And if not for James Wood High School junior varsity football coach Ryan Morgan, that hole may not have been discovered until it was too late. Something was not right

Sports have been a part of Logan's life for as long as he can remember. From soccer to flag football to baseball to full-contact football to wrestling - if it was a sport, he played it.

In fact, while attending James Wood Middle School, he played for not only his school's football team, but also the county football team, often leaving one practice to drive to another. So it was a given that he would try out for the football team in the fall as a freshman at James Wood High School this year (and subsequently the wrestling team in the winter and maybe the baseball team in the spring).

A 5-foot-3-inch 108-pound freshman playing on the JV team will not exactly be expected to play on the offensive line. Instead, most teams would try to use his speed and elusiveness. With his experience at running back and safety, Logan got some time as a kick returner early in practice. "He was doing a pretty good job for us," said Morgan, who was in his first year as the JV coach. "He could run pretty well when he was refreshed." The only problem: Logan seemed to tire very quickly - a condition he first noticed a few years earlier.

"We'd always do at least six 100-yard sprints at the beginning of practice [in middle school] and I noticed I'd get tired a lot," he said. "I thought maybe I was just out of shape." Not the most logical of conclusions for a healthy teenage boy, but what else could it be?

"We first noticed it after we'd been lifting weights and then were running around the track," Morgan said. "He was lagging behind not just guys his size, but even the bigger kids. It was kind of strange, but we just let it go for that night, figured maybe he was tired or something.

"But then we got to putting our pads on and he was still dragging. It was one of those hot August days and I took a close look at him when he took his helmet off and I noticed that his face was really pale and that his lips had turned purple. Obviously that was not normal."

After practice, Morgan walked over to Logan's parents Bill and Bonnie King and told them what he had seen. An exercise physiologist who works with the Prince William County Fire and Rescue Department, Bonnie immediately knew something was not right and set up an appointment for Logan to see a cardiologist. "They took him in, did an ultrasound and said, 'There's the problem right there,'" she said. "It was that visible." What the doctor saw was a ventricular septal defect - a hole - in the bottom of Logan's heart.

"It's something that's typically diagnosed at birth," Bonnie said. "You don't see a 13-year-old with a very large septal defect; that just doesn't happen." "That's a huge hole"

Just like that, Logan's life was turned upside-down. All physical activity was immediately halted - which meant playing sports was out the question. "It was awful because it was right before his first game," Bonnie said. "And then he had to miss his first day of high school because he had [an appointment with a specialist]."

After performing a series of tests, doctors told Logan and his family that he had a 22-millimeter hole between the left and right ventricles of his heart. "They told us that's pretty darn big," Bonnie said. "They kind of gauge how big a hole is in relation to the diameter of the aorta. [Logan's] aorta was 21 millimeters and his hole was 22 millimeters, so they were like, 'That's a huge hole.'"

And it was a hole that needed to be filled right away. Present since the day he was born but unnoticed due to its size - which masked any type of murmur a physician could have heard during a routine checkup - the hole was forcing blood into his lungs and decreasing circulation to the rest of his body. "That increases the pressure on the pulmonary vessels and in the lungs, and it can cause a hardening of those vessels," Bonnie said. "And eventually [the vessels] will stop responding, which could lead to pulmonary crisis, or worse, the need for a lung transplant."

Another solution

The only problem was that no ventricular occlusive device - used to fill septal defects - was large enough for a hole as big as Logan's. So the next option was open-heart surgery. "We were gearing up for them to have to crack his chest open," Bonnie said.

Luckily, another solution was found.

While researching and working with other doctors in the area, the Kings' cardiologist found that an atrial occlusive device called an amplatzer - normally used in the upper chambers of the heart and much larger in diameter - had been successfully used in the ventricles.

That was good news when three-dimensional pictures of Logan's heart later revealed that what had been believed to be a 22-millimeter hole was actually 30 by 40 millimeters.

"They had every surgeon and cardiologist under the sun looking at him, because most of them will probably never get a chance to see something like this again, and they find out it's even bigger than they originally thought," Bonnie said. "So they had this long debate while he was under anesthesia about whether to go to surgery to fix it or continue with the cardiac catheterization [using the occlusive device to fill the hole]."

They eventually decided to stick with the catheterization technique. Using a series of wires called snares - run through Logan's femoral artery, femoral vein and carotid artery - Dr. Rabih Hamzeh and his team in October inserted the atrial occlusive device, which Bonnie described as "looking like an Oreo," into the hole in Logan's heart.

"Counting down the days"

Much to his disappointment, Logan's body has no visible scars from the operation, save for a few tiny marks where the snares were inserted. "He'd been joking with my step-father, who's had a quadruple bypass, about how they were going to compare scars and see whose was the biggest," Bill said.

Logan was never in any real pain, except perhaps when the tape was pulled off his skin, and the only difference he has felt since the procedure are the occasional off-beats as his heart adjusts to its new apparatus. Eventually the pericardial tissue will grow over the occlusive device, making it forever a part of his heart.

The doctors are still monitoring Logan's pulmonary pressures to make sure they continue to drop to normal levels. They hope this will occur in roughly six months, allowing him to return to doing what he loves. "It's made me want to play sports even more," he said. "I'm just counting down the days until I can play again."

But while he may not have been able to suit up for the Colonels this season, Logan was never apart from the team. He has never missed a practice, except when doctor appointments intervened, and he's been a constant on the sideline, serving as a ball boy for the JV squad.

"We didn't really talk about it, he didn't say anything and I didn't suggest it to him; he just wanted to be part of the team," Morgan said. "He loves playing football, he wants to be the starting center, quarterback, running back, kick returner, whatever he can be. He just loves football and wants to be around it."

And because his coach took the time to point out something that didn't seem right to him, Logan should one day be able to play again. "He could have been just another statistic," said Bonnie about the potential for Logan's condition to have become fatal if not diagnosed.

"He was a healthy 13-year-old kid playing football, but had Coach Morgan not noticed that something was wrong ... the cardiologist explained to us that he could have gone into right ventricular failure and been one of those stories you hear about a kid falling down on the field and never getting back up."

"Many more tomorrows"

At James Wood's annual football banquet Wednesday night, the Kings surprised Morgan with a plaque. On it is a quotation: "Before someone's tomorrow has been taken away, cherish those you love, appreciate them today." Underneath it is this message: "Thank you Coach Morgan for giving Logan many more tomorrows."

"It was totally unexpected," said Morgan about receiving the plaque. "I was just doing my job. There was a kid in Kentucky a couple years ago who passed away after he kept running and running and running during conditioning and nobody noticed that anything was wrong.

"As a coach you read about these stories in Sports Illustrated or you hear about them on ESPN and you say to yourself, 'I don't want to be that coach.' I'd feel guilty the rest of my life if anything happened to any of my players."

In a time when coaches failing to act in the best interest of their players dominates the headlines, and the public demands accountability and responsibility, the simple act of a coach notifying a player's parents about something that didn't seem right seems magnified.

Ryan Morgan may have thought he was just doing his job, but in the Kings' eyes he may have saved their son's life.

"He gave him a chance to live his life," Bonnie said.

"Whether Logan ends up being a star football player or whatever he ends up being or deciding to do, Coach Morgan has given him that opportunity. And we'll be forever grateful for that."

- Contact Kevin Trudgeon at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.