Fenton teen back home after collapse in gym class

Kiara Landin is resting comfortably at home for the first time since collapsing earlier this month during a high school gym class.

The 16-year-old Fenton High School sophomore was released Tuesday afternoon from Advocate Hope Children's Hospital in Oak Lawn, days after having a pacemaker installed to help regulate her heartbeat.

Jovita Landin, Kiara's mom, said a combination of the physical stress from gym class activities and medicine Kiara takes to control her diabetes led to her heart failing on Dec. 7.

Kiara and her classmates were running a mile during gym class when she collapsed.

When teachers reached Kiara, she didn't have a pulse and had stopped breathing.

By the time paramedics arrived, several school officials and students had performed basic life support, including using an automated external defibrillator that restored her heartbeat.

"I don't remember any of that, but I think I finished the mile," Kiara said Tuesday. "I won't be running those again for a while, but I'll eventually get back to doing other things, like being on the speech team."

Kiara said she came home with several instruments and devices to help monitor the pacemaker.

She's said she is sore from the surgery but expects that to go away soon. Otherwise, she said, she's feeling "much better."

"She understands there's a lot to learn and a lot she's going to have to keep track of now," Jovita Landin said of her daughter. "She's a young girl with a lot of responsibilities now."

Doctors will decide at the end of the month when Kiara can return to school. She said she's disappointed to be missing final exams.

In the meantime, she'll be taking it easy with limited activity and no heavy lifting.

"After everything is healed, the doctors say she'll live a healthy, normal life, but she'll just have to be careful," her mother said.

"That's our family's Christmas present this year," she said. "We're so happy to still have her here."

On Monday, Fenton school board members and Bensenville Fire Chief Mike Spain honored everyone who assisted Kiara when she collapsed.

The honorees included Fenton staff members Roxanne Mitchell, Lisa Harmon, Carol Meneses, Kristy Weseloh and Mark Farrel, and students Kristen Koeller, Alfredo Madero, Eric Justiano and Franciso Quintero.

Many of those honored were too humbled to speak about their roles in helping Kiara. Spain said they all are heroes, including the three paramedics who stabilized and transported her.

"You witnessed something that normally doesn't happen, to be quite candid with you," Spain said. "To have someone go into cardiac arrest and survive is incredible, and the key to that is the teamwork displayed by your staff, your students and the paramedics."