Evening Herald
Saturday 29 September 2012
Ace hurler fights back after heart scare nightmare
Last year he was playing in goals for the Dublin minor hurling team that narrowly missed out on All-Ireland glory – today he’s recovering from a heart condition that nearly killed him.
Cormac Ryan (19) from Whitehall, now has a pacemaker and is hoping to become involved with the Dublin under 21 side next year.
He has also decided to raise awareness of SADS (Sudden Adult Death Syndrome) with his Cycle for Life that will see him cycle around Ireland starting on April 5 next year.
Cormac, his brother Sean and pals Kevin Conway and Niall O’Donnell, who have all been affected, will cycle 1,100 miles – poignantly stopping in Cormac McAnallen’s hometown of Eglish first.
The money is going to the Irish Heart Foundation, CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young) and the Cormac Trust (after Tyrone footballer Cormac McAnallen.
DIZZY
“The first few months were tough and I was down in the dumps but I’ve come around and realize that I have to make the best of the situation”, he said.
“I’ve decided to raise awareness and as I’m only allowed do non-contact training, we decided on the cycle.”
He became aware of the problem while playing in a championship semi-final for his club, Whitehall Colmcille, last year.
“Throughout the match I had been going down and getting dizzy but I have asthma so we thought it was that and I had taken a few big hits to the chest”, he said.
“It got to the stage where I could hardly breath and they took me off then and my breathing got worse and the pain in my chest got worse and they ended up calling an ambulance.”
He was rushed to Tallaght Hospital, which has a centre dedicated to SADS, before being checked out and told he could go home. Cormac believed it was his asthma until the problem resurfaced. “We were winter training in January and it was really tough going. I was used to being one of the fittest guys on the team but then it hit me like a ton of bricks,” he added.
“I’d be down on the ground nearly passing out.”
Cormac’s father contacted a respiratory specialist and further tests were conducted, one of which involved wearing a heart monitor for 24 hours. The afternoon after there was panic.
PACEMAKER
He was rushed to coronary care at Beaumont Hospital and was there for two weeks on a heart monitor and had a pacemaker put in.
The DCU student, who is taking a year out from his athletic therapy course to recover, was found to be suffering from heart block, a condition that results in the heart skipping beats – while he was having breakfast one morning his heart stopped for five seconds without him noticing.
“I was flat-lining”, he said. “Thankfully with the hurling I had never taken a drink because I was told my heart-rate was dropping to 30 beats a second and that’s dangerously low and would have been lower if I had a load of alcohol. I could have easily drifted off”.
After last year’s heartache of losing the All-Ireland final, Cormac is hoping Dublin can get revenge in their minor final replay with Tipperary.
“They stepped up well but Tipperary are a good team,” he said.