KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In the fall of 1990, Eric Holm was beginning his first year as head coach at Northeast Missouri State University, now known as Truman State University.
While watching Monday night’s Bills versus Bengals game, Holm had a flashback to 32 years ago.
“Eerily similar,” he said. “The silence, the understanding by both teams.”
In the fourth game of the season, Derringer Cade, a junior, collapsed on the sideline and later died.
“Derringer, it was if one of my own children had passed away,” Holm said. “Your own player right there in front of you and you are powerless.”
It wasn’t until the 2000’s that automated external defibrillator (AED's) became common in workplaces and schools.
Dr. Anthony Magalski, the athletic heart clinic medical director at St. Luke’s mid-America Heart Institute, said the key to using the devices is having them close by.
“They have to be readily available like last night,” Magalski said. “Someone knew exactly where that AED was. You could tell they got it on the field very quickly. It can’t be locked away in a nurse’s office when the kids are in the gym practicing basketball.”
Holm said the team’s trainer immediately started CPR as an ambulance made its way to them. They could hear the sirens of an ambulance approaching from its station it was so silent at the stadium.
“You could hear it coming from the hospital. It was faint in the distance. You were just hoping it would get there,” Holm said. “It kept getting closer and closer. That was really the only sound.”
Clips from that game show a similar comradery between opposing teams.
“Both teams came together,” he said. “Much like last night, and that’s what triggered this for me. We talk about it a lot, but the events of last night were eerily similar.”
Before he retired, Holm worked as an athletic director.
Because of his experience early on in his career, he was adamant about giving athletes and students the highest quality of care and protection with tools like AED’s and lightning detectors.
He worked closely with the trainers to establish the best placement for AED’s.
“Wherever they said to put them — I put them and was totally supportive of that. You can’t be safe enough,” Holm said. “It wasn’t hard for me to say this is something we need to do, absolutely.”
Truman State University has an award in Cade’s honor, recognizing one player each year.
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