Karns City quarterback Mason Martin has not yet regained consciousness since collapsing during a game on Sept. 1, but if the last couple of days are any indication, his father said, Mason could open his eyes “any day now.”
“He’s trying,” Denny Martin said on Thursday, Sept. 21. “You see his eyes trying to open, blinking and fluttering.”
“We’re just waiting for them to pop open,” he said.
As Mason becomes more aware, his family is focused on trying to make him as comfortable as they can, his father said.
Mason has shown real signs of improvement, according to an update from his family on Wednesday, Sept. 20.
The senior at Karns City Area Jr./Sr. High School was injured during a game against Redbank Valley on Sept. 1 and flown to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh to be treated for a brain bleed and a collapsed lung.
Mason’s family has shared several updates since then, including one last week that said Mason had a difficult week. According to a post, Mason experienced a dangerous incident of ventricular tachycardia, where the lower chambers of the heart beat quickly.
On Wednesday, the 17-year-old’s family shared that he has shown signs of improvement. Though the heart troubles from last week sparked concern, Mason’s parents Denny and Stacey Martin said his health seems to have made a turn for the better.
“It was as if his body just reset itself,” they wrote.
After the ventricular tachycardia, Mason was able to come off most of his medication, they added.
Mason had an MRI over the weekend and by Sunday he was entirely off sedation, according to his parents.
“Although only a piece of the puzzle, the results were very encouraging,” they said of the MRI.
They wrote that Mason made “purposeful movements” within hours of the medication being stopped, and on Tuesday, doctors took him off a breathing machine for the first time since Sept. 1.
“They told us not to be disappointed if he couldn’t do it,” his parents wrote in the update. “His lungs haven’t pumped on their own in over two and a half weeks. He went five hours straight breathing unassisted. The team met with us and said although they can’t guarantee anything, they have yet to see anything that would suggest that he can’t make a full recovery.”
His family noted that there is a long recovery still to come, but they are hopeful based on the progress Mason’s made.
“We are still a long way from victory, but we’re also a long way from Sept. 1st when we were begging the doctor to just give him a chance. She did and has invested her life into saving him,” they wrote.
Mason is only where he is today based on the medical staff’s work, community support, his determination and God’s will, according to his parents.
“Again, things can change quickly, but we’re just going to enjoy this moment. Thank you all. Keep praying and keep fighting for him because he’s coming back!”
