ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — It's been six years since Erika Lowe buried her 13-year-old daughter, Paris Byrd.
“Very smart, outspoken, beautiful, you name it, she was that. She was like an angel on earth,” Lowe said.
The pain is still raw.
“It's a hard pill to swallow, to any mother or father losing a loved one, but a mom,” Lowe said.
She dropped her daughter off at Murray Middle School in St. Augustine for what she thought would be a normal day not knowing her 8th grader had a life-threatening heart disease called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. It caused her heart muscle to thicken.
Her bookworm, as she describes her, was at basketball tryouts when she collapsed on the court.
“She went down, and then they got up and they sat over there on the bleachers. And they say she was just laughing. And then all of a sudden she wasn't, and they thought that she was sleeping,” Lowe said.
Her daughter suffered sudden cardiac arrest, SCA.
“I knew she was gone when the school called me and said she wasn't breathing, you know, but in my mind, I was like, Lord, please, you know, that's my baby. I sent her to school that morning, and whoever thought out of my six kids one would not be coming back. I'm still hurt. I think about it every day.”
Lowe says her daughter had no warning signs.
Dr. Jennifer Maynard, a sports medicine specialist at the Mayo Clinic, says an electrocardiogram, also known as an EKG or ECG, can help detect conditions like the one Paris had. She recommends kids start having on around the age of ten.
“I think the first thing to know is that sudden cardiac arrest is still the leading cause of death in youth athletes,” Dr. Maynard said. “One in 300 youth athletes can have an abnormality that can be detected by ECG and doing an ECG is simple. It's easy. It's painless.”
It's a heart screening Paris never had. It’s a screening she urges parents to take their children to get.
“Get it the EKG done early, get it done early, especially if they're talking about playing sports, because you don't know. You don't know. You don't know, if they have a heart problem. And you're not going to know by just doing the regular physical,” Lowe said. “If I would have known I would have gotten it done. Had I know it might have saved her life.”
Often times these heart conditions can be genetic, and after Paris died, two of her brothers found out they have the same heart condition. They are now being monitored by doctors.
First Coast News is partnering with the nonprofit Who We Play For for a free heart screening evening. Registration is open to anyone age 10 to 22 to get a free EKG January 8, 2024 at the Flex Field next to EverBank Stadium. Sign your child up today. It could save their life.