Jordan Cox thought her life was about to end.
That was before doctors had to stop her heart.
Two years ago, as a high school freshman, the Irving Nimitz softball player was rushed to the emergency room after suddenly becoming sick while dining out with her family.
“She just looked at us and said, ‘I really feel like I’m fixing to die,’” Cox’s mother, Tracey, said. “This is our kid who has never been sick before.
“They immediately rushed her back and said there’s a problem with her heart. Her heartbeat was like 260 beats a minute. They were doing an EKG and said, ‘We’re going to have to do a chemical restart of her heart’ — to stop her heart for a moment. They stopped it to reset it and got it back in rhythm.”
About a month later, Cox learned she had supraventricular tachycardia, episodes of a rapid heart rate that are caused by electrical signals in the heart’s upper chambers firing abnormally. Cox spent a year on medication and wearing a heart monitor while waiting for the family’s health insurance to kick in because of a new job, then had two heart surgeries in three months.
On Friday (April 18), the junior outfielder/second baseman will play her final game of the year as Nimitz’s season comes to an end. She won’t be the only Nimitz player who overcame a heart condition to be there. So did sophomore shortstop/third baseman Alli Jones.
