It may seem like a typical day of practice for the El Capitan High School Boys Varsity team, but a key piece of the team is missing from the field. On November 11, senior Andy Gerardo-Novelo suddenly collapsed during practice, and Assistant Coach John Curo was the first to reach him.

“I was the one who gave him CPR, chest compressions, and within three minutes the sheriffs were here,” Curo says. “And within five minutes the paramedics were here. So it all happened very quickly and I was lucky to be here.”

Meanwhile, head coach Sahil Alami rushed to call 9-1-1, clearly realizing that time was of the essence.

“I’ve never experienced anything like this,” explains Coach Alami. “I have never been in a situation where I had to respond to this violence.”

A moment they both trained for as coaches but never thought they would experience.

“I never expected something like this to happen to us,” Alami says.

It is a difficult process not only for them, but for the whole team, including Marcus Gonzalez.

“I was thinking in my head, this might be the last time I see him, I’ve never been in anything like this,” he says.

And things could quickly get worse.

“Luckily for him, I was in the right place at the right time,” says Curo.

Sudden cardiac arrest has been shown to be the leading cause of death in the United States, claiming more than 350,000 lives annually, according to a report from the American Heart Association.

39% of SCAs in under-18s are sports-related.

Less than 10% of SCA victims do not survive because bystanders are unprepared to respond to a cardiac emergency.

“The doctors actually asked his family to deliver a message to us, saying that we saved his life and that it was a miracle that he was still with us,” Alami says.

“I was so lucky to be there to help him and do whatever I could for him,” Curo says.

A. GoFundMeMade for the family.