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Our son, Josh McCormick a freshman at Madison Grant High School, was a straight “A” student who
was very athletic. He ran track, played tennis, basketball, and his favorite sport, baseball. He also played the trombone
in band.
Josh went to school early on December 6 th for
an early morning basketball practice. During warm ups he collapsed and fell to the floor. His heart went into sudden cardiac
arrest and he stopped breathing but thanks to some heroic efforts by his coach, a custodian and all of his teammates they
were able to start his heart again with CPR and a defibrillator that the school had in place. Due to the rural area of the
school it took some time for an ambulance to arrive at the school and take him to our local hospital. Josh was transferred
by helicopter from our local hospital to Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne where they determined that his heart was in bad shape
and the best place to treat him would be at Peyton Manning Children’s hospital in Indianapolis. We spent the next week
at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital by his side watching him fight for his life and praying for a miracle that he
would pull through.
We did not get the miracle of Josh coming back to us, but we did witness nothing short of a miracle when the
community came together in support for us. We understood that the reason Josh made it as far as he did was because of the
AED that the school had purchased, so we started a fund to buy more AED for other schools in our county. The community rallied
behind us and kids took up collections at basketball games and did various things to raise money.
Marion General Hospital heard what we were doing and stepped up to the plate and hit a home run by donating
defibrillators for every school in Grant county. We also learned that Community Hospital along with the Madison County Community
Foundation, joined forces to purchase AED for the Anderson Community School system. We are proud to say that every kid in
our county will have that fighting chance like Josh had should they suffer a cardiac arrest. Josh lost his fight to an unknown
virus that attacked his heart but his legacy lives on every time you see a defibrillator in a Grant county school.
John and Jennifer McCormick
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